George Pelecanos - The Way Home

“You gonna take that Berber roll with you, right?” said Flynn.

“That job is not today,” said Hector.

“I need to get it out of here. Otherwise I’ve got to pay, like, rent for it. You’ve got Isaac’s van, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“C’mon, I’ll help you put it in.”

They found the roll in Flynn’s section. He checked its tag, on which was written the customer’s name, and he motioned for Hector to grab an end.

“The Berber popular,” said Hector, grunting as he lifted.

“I can move as much as they give me,” said Flynn.

He was, and always had been, a good salesman. He sold like a factory rep, not an untrained retail salesman with an eye on the clock or a better job. He was a professional carpet-and-floor man. He knew the product thoroughly, explained its advantages, and, because he was a good listener rather than a fast talker, made many deals.

The problem was not with sales. Through referrals and his own acumen at closing, Flynn had as much business as he could handle. The problem was with installations and installers.

Flynn still had Isaac and his crew, and they were golden. Isaac had been with him for many years and would be with him as long as Flynn had work. Isaac had built on to his house in Wheaton, one of the many unconventional “Spanish mansions” seen in the area around Veirs Mill and Randolph roads, had a daughter in college and a son who was learning the installation trade. He would never live in El Salvador again. Isaac’s crew came and went, usually leaving the country due to unpaid taxes or immigration complications, but even though the faces changed, to a man they did quality, responsible work. No wonder Flynn’s mantra was Thank God for Hispanic workers.

Flynn and Hector loaded the roll into the van.

Hector looked at Flynn sorrowfully and said, “No more job today.”

“We didn’t make much money today,” said Flynn, always careful to use the inclusive pronoun. “But we will tomorrow. I’ve got something for you every day this week.”

“Okay, boss.”

Hector drove the van out of the lot, Flynn thinking, Yeah, these Spanish guys like to work. Not like Chris and his crews of parolees.

There were plenty of installers with tough pasts. Ex-offenders, bulls, and badasses of various colors and ethnicities, all on the young side. None had gone to college. This wasn’t the place for students looking for summer jobs. Flynn had tried one or two out, and they hadn’t been able to cut it. It was hard, demanding work. The goods were heavy and bulky, and much of the job time was spent on one’s knees.

Many of the installers drank heavily at night and used marijuana and other drugs. Flynn could smell the alcohol in their sweat, could see the misery in their eyes nearly every morning. Unhealthy skin pallor was another giveaway. When Flynn interviewed a potential worker, he took note of his teeth. A guy had fucked-up teeth, it meant he came from little means or was raised by people who didn’t care enough about their own kid to see to his dental hygiene. Whites from East Baltimore had the worst choppers.

Because it was hard work, and because the success of his business depended on their diligence and conscientious manner, Flynn compensated his installers relatively well. A sharp, hard-charging bull could make fifty, sixty grand a year installing carpets, but guys like that were rare. Chris’s guys were lucky to make twenty-five to thirty thousand. Flynn put a little extra on Chris’s check, due to the fact that he was a crew chief, so Chris made about thirty-five.

Thirty-five tops, thought Flynn, as he walked into the TCFI offices to drop off a check.

“Hey, Tommy,” said a young woman behind one of two computers in the office.

Flynn couldn’t remember her name. She was usually outside smoking in the morning when he came by, a gregarious Laurel girl, chubby, with a Route 1 hairstyle, one of those burn perm things.

“How’s it going, sweetheart?” said Flynn.

“It’s Susie.”

“I knew that. Sweetheart suits you better, though.” Susie smiled, and Flynn dropped an envelope on her desk. “Give that to the boss, will you? I don’t want him to send the cavalry out after me.”

“Your son was in this morning,” said Susie.

Susie made eye contact with the girl seated behind the other computer, a pretty, fair-skinned strawberry blonde, voluptuous for her thin bone structure, couldn’t have been more than two or three years out of high school. Flynn had noticed her before but had never heard her speak.

“Say hello to Katherine,” said Susie. The girl looked down at her desk in a self-conscious gesture and smiled.

“Nice to meet you, darling,” said Flynn.

“And you,” said Katherine.

“Chris never says more than a couple of words to me,” said Susie, once again glancing at her office mate. “Course, I’m spoken for. But he doesn’t mind talking to Kate.”

“It’s Katherine,” said the woman, gently correcting her coworker.

Kate would be twenty-seven now.

“Chris is just shy around girls named Susie,” said Flynn, forcing a grin. “Not like me.”

“He doesn’t even look like you,” said Susie. “All that blond hair.”

Again the girl named Katherine looked down at her desk.

“He got that from his mom,” said Flynn, then comically puffed out his chest and made a bodybuilder’s pose. “But he got the beef from me.”

“Get out of here, Tommy!” said Susie, her boisterous, wheezy, Marlboro Light-inflected laughter trailing Flynn as he left the office.

Out in the hot sun, he put on his shades and walked to his van.

Kate would be twenty-seven. Amanda and me would be getting her ready for a wedding, or visiting her where she works, some professional job in New York City, maybe, or Chicago.

Flynn passed a guy he knew in the parking lot but did not say hello.

Chris is twenty-six. No college, time in prison, his days spent on his knees, laying carpet.

Flynn opened the van’s driver’s-side door.

Thirty-five grand a year, tops.

He got into the van and fitted his key to the ignition.

What’s going to happen to my son?

Should we count it?” said Ben Braswell.

“No,” said Chris, staring at the money, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t even want to touch it.”

“You don’t want to know how much it is?”

“Zip up the bag and put it back in that hole,” said Chris. “Then seal it up again with that cutout piece. We’ll get this new carpet down and move on to the next job.”

“You’re serious.”

“I am.”

Ben stood up, went to the window that gave to a view of the street, and opened it. He meant to cool the room, but the air outside was still, and there was no discernible relief from the heat.

“Why?” said Ben, walking back to join Chris. “Why you don’t even want to talk about this?”

“It’s stealing.”

“You just told me yourself, the dude who lived here died, and he had no kin. You can see how old this bag is. Prob’ly the man who lived here last wasn’t even the one who buried it. And you know that real estate lady didn’t bury no money. Whoever put it under this floor got to be buried now, too. So how is this stealing? From who? ”

“It’s not ours,” said Chris.

“It ain’t nobody’s, far as I can tell.”

Chris ran his hand through his longish blond hair.

“Forget this,” said Ben, and he got down on his haunches and reached into the bag. “I gotta know.”

Without removing the band, he slowly counted one of the stacks of money, bill by bill. His lips moved as he mentally tabulated the sum.

I’ve seen this movie, thought Chris. Innocent, basically good people found some money and decided to keep it, rationalizing their act because the cash belonged to no one. The money corrupted them, and they betrayed one another and were ultimately brought down by their own greed, a basic component of their human nature that they thought they would overcome. It always ended up bad.