Peter Abrahams - Lights Out

The boy looked puzzled. “Have you read the Bible?” he asked. “I’m talking about the Old Testament.”

“No.”

“That’s why you can ask a question like that.”

They looked at each other for a few moments. Eddie laid the printout on the desk. “What do I owe you?”

“For what?”

“The computer time.”

“Not a thing.”

Pinchas took off the Twins cap, put on the skullcap. He was rewrapping the Twins cap in tissue paper when Eddie left.

Now when Eddie walked into the suite, Jack was there, pacing by the window, smoking a cigarette. He wore a double-breasted suit, a white shirt, and a silk tie, but his feet were bare.

“It’s you,” he said. “Where’d you fuck off to?”

“Just taking a virtual-reality check,” Eddie said. “Not my thing.”

Jack nodded, but absent, blank. He paced, glanced out the window, let cigarette ash flutter down to the rug.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie said.

“Nothing.”

Eddie noticed that Jack’s feet, once high-arched and strong, had changed. They were almost flat now, and the toenails were thick and yellowed with fungus.

“I don’t believe you,” Eddie said.

Jack rounded on him. “Nothing’s wrong that you can help with. Let’s put it that way.”

Eddie nodded. He took out what was left of the $350 and laid it on the TV. “I’ll send you the clothes.” He moved toward the door.

Jack bounded toward him, spun him around, held him by the shoulders. He was still strong.

“I don’t need any shit from you, bro.”

For a moment Eddie just stood there, like a rabbit mesmerized by a predator, like an inmate who knew the pecking order. Then he raised his hands, placed them on Jack’s chest, and pushed him away. Not too hard-Jack was his brother; but he didn’t want to be handled.

Not too hard, maybe, but it was hard enough to send Jack to the floor. He bounced up, came at Eddie with his hand raised for a backswing across the face. Eddie was tired of that; he caught Jack’s wrist in midair and held it. Jack wasn’t like Raleigh. He was much stronger, much tougher. Still, he couldn’t move his arm at all. When he saw that, he showed he was much smarter too-the resistance went out of him completely and at once.

Eddie released him. Jack gave him a long look. “You’ve changed.”

“That’s a pretty stupid thing to say.”

“I know. Shit. I can’t think straight.” Jack rubbed his forehead with the heels of both palms, as though that might unscramble whatever was going on inside.

“What’s the trouble?” Eddie said.

Jack sighed, turned to the window, glanced out. “When’s this fucking rain going to stop?” He picked his smoldering cigarette out of an ashtray and started pacing again. He took powerful strides, three or four one way, three or four back. Rain made spidery streaks on the window, arpeggios to his rhythm section. “Money trouble, Eddie. What other kind of trouble is there?”

Eddie knew lots. “You’re talking about Windward Financial?”

“What else?”

“I thought it could be your personal money or something.”

Jack laughed; an unfunny two-track sound, harsh and ironic. “Other people are likely to make the same mistake. And when they do it’s finito. I’m not just talking about fines I can’t pay, I’m talking about jail, bro. Is that clear enough?”

Jail was clear enough to Eddie, but he still didn’t know what Jack’s problem was. “Explain,” he said.

Jack took a deep drag of his cigarette, deep enough to burn off half an inch of it. Eddie felt a strong desire for a smoke himself, suppressed it. “The way this business works,” Jack said, “I make money for people. I invest what they give me as I see fit, within parameters we establish at the beginning. Follow?”

Eddie nodded.

“In addition, Windward has its own account.”

“Meaning you.”

Jack squinted at him through a cloud of smoke. “Yeah, meaning me. Sometimes, just for simplicity-you wouldn’t believe how complicated this can get-money from the investor accounts gets pooled for a while with Windward money. Nothing wrong with it, as long as everything’s kosher by the time the quarterlies go out. Sometimes mistakes happen.”

“Like with J. M. Nye and Associates?”

Pause. “That’s right. Raleigh fucked up, but it was just a technicality. If it hadn’t happened when it did, at the end of the eighties when everybody got so righteous all of a sudden…” He took another drag, and then a deeper one, as though he couldn’t get enough smoke inside him. “And of course we were an easy target. A boutique, right? Not Drexel or some big dick like that. So they got in a pissy mood and took a swing at us and now Raleigh’s the way he is. But it wasn’t the end of the world. There was still lots of money around, money to cover. Now there isn’t.”

“Where did it go?”

“It didn’t go anywhere. That’s the point. There’s this flow of money, Eddie. You’ve got to tap it-like maple sap up at the sugar bush when we were kids. Remember?”

“No.”

“Maybe you weren’t there that time. It must have been with Mom.” Jack’s eyes assumed an inward look for a moment. “What I’m saying is that the money’s not flowing anymore,” he continued. “There are a lot of reasons-you can find them in the part of the paper that interesting people don’t read. I got into a situation where I couldn’t wait anymore. I tried a few things-copper futures, that was one.” He paused, took another drag, resumed pacing. “Copper futures. It’s all controlled by three or four ball busters in London. I got in a hole. It led to some… maneuvering in the accounts. Technical stuff. The quarterlies were coming up and I was going snake.”

“What about selling the houses in Aspen and Connecticut?”

Jack’s gaze went to the coffee table, where the Windward brochure had lain the night of Eddie’s arrival. “They’re gone, bro. They were mortgaged right down to the Jacuzzis anyway. I tried everything, even the banks, that’s how bad it was.” He looked out the window. “I hate this city now. If I get out of this…” His cigarette was burned down to the nub. He lit a new one off it, kept smoking, staring out at the rain. “Then you know what happens?”

“What?”

“Karen de Vere calls, out of the blue. Potential investor from upstate. I’d heard of the family. Potential, that’s all. Meaningless. But two days later she’s here with a check in her hand, big enough to get me through the quarterlies. She’d heard good things about me, blah blah blah. Looks like a Manhattan she-wolf who knows her stuff, but she’s just an upstate girl with a lot to learn. No matter. To me she was Jesus Christ, in his role as savior.”

Eddie thought: What about the hockey game you and Karen went to? One of them was lying. He said: “So what’s the problem?”

“She called last night. She’s changed her mind. Wants to close her account.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning take back her goddamn two hundred and thirty grand. What could be clearer?”

“You’ll have to give it to her then, won’t you?”

Jack turned. “You know something, Eddie? You’re slow.”

“Out here, maybe.” In the real world. It hit Eddie then that prison, an unreal world, was like virtual reality. Instead of sticking your head in a helmet you stuck your whole body behind walls. “I’m quick in the VR world.”

Jack shook his head. “You didn’t lose your sense of humor.”

“I keep hearing that. Tell me why you can’t give Karen the money.”

“Because it’s gone, most of it. That’s why. I had a lot of debt, the kind that couldn’t wait.”