Don Winslow - A Long Walk Up the Waterslide

Marc Merolla was unfailingly kind. Soft-spoken and polite, he was a successful stock trader and investor who wanted to do well by doing good and had pulled it off so far. Even his clothes seemed calculated not to threaten. Today he was wearing a plum polo shirt with the collar turned up over a cream-colored sweater. His dull brown corduroy trousers were baggy and fell over suede shoes.

“Sorry to disturb your Saturday morning,” Ed said.

Ed had taken the 3:00 A.M. train from New York, gone to the offices in the bank to shower and change clothes, then taken a cab to Merolla’s.

“You’re never a disturbance, Ed,” Marc said as he ushered him in. “Let me tell Theresa you’re here.”

He took Ed’s jacket and hung it on an antique coat rack in the hallway. He motioned for Ed to wait, then returned a few moments later with his wife and two young children.

Small and dark, Theresa was a perfect match for Marc. Her black hair framed sharp, pretty features and her brown eyes seemed to engage without challenging. She and Marc had dated since high school, all the way through college, and then married.

Theresa had an arm around each child’s shoulder as she whispered to them and pushed them forward to shake their guest’s hand.

Ed squatted to greet them. He made small talk with Theresa for a few minutes before she excused herself and the children to return to the kitchen, where they were busy baking a cake.

“Do you want to come in the library?” Marc asked. “And can I make you a cappuccino? It’s my Saturday-morning indulgence.”

“Sounds great. Thanks.”

Marc opened the library door, just off the hallway, and gestured to a Danish-modern chair.

“I’ll be right back.”

Ed took a walk around the large room. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases held collections of the classics and an assortment of reference books. Several music stands, their surfaces laid flat, held oversized, open photography books, most of them of Italian country scenes. The walls were decorated with opera posters, mementos, and framed photographs of Marc and Theresa, their family, and their friends.

As Ed surveyed the pictures, music came piping softly from speakers in the bookcases. Opera, Ed thought with a smile. A typical Marc Merolla gesture, because Marc and Ed had first met at the opera. It was a charity event that Kitteredge had been desperate to dodge, so he’d sent Ed instead. To his own great surprise, Ed had enjoyed the music and also the Merollas.

Marc came in juggling two large cups of cappuccino. He set them both on his desk, handed one to Ed, then sat down. Ed sat down across from him.

Marc said, “You look awful.”

It wasn’t an insult, but an opening.

“I wouldn’t bother you with this, Marc,” Ed said. “But it’s a real crisis.”

“We’re Friends of the Family, right?”

Marc had several large accounts at the bank.

“It’s nice of you to think of it that way.”

“What do you need?”

Ed sighed and then spit it out.

“I need to talk with your grandfather.”

“Don’t look so embarrassed,” Marc said. “I talk with him all the time. I just don’t work with him.”

Ed heard the slight stress on the word work.

“This is business,” Ed said.

“I don’t know anything about his business,” Marc said. “Every three or four years, I seem to have to convince the FBI of that, but I didn’t think I’d have to convince you.”

“You don’t,” Ed asserted. He knew that Marc Merolla had never been involved in the family business. He also knew how hard it was for Italian-Americans to shake the mob label, especially in a wholly owned Mafia subsidiary like Rhode Island. “I know who you are, Marc.”

“Then why are you asking me this?”

“One of my people is in trouble. I need help. I was hoping maybe your grandfather could open a door for me.”

Marc chuckled softly. “He’s in prison, Ed. If he could open doors

…”

It was no secret that Dominic Merolla ran New England from a suite at the Adult Correctional Institution.

“If I could just talk with him,” Ed said.

Marc was quiet while he seemed to be listening to the aria and sipping cappuccino. He was thinking it through.

After a long while, he said, “We go to see him every other week, Theresa and the boys and I. The boys ask me if Poppy is a bad man and I tell them that he’s not a bad man but that he has old ways that get him into trouble.

“He’s seventy-eight years old and he’s sick. Do you know why the state prosecuted?”

“No.”

“To beat the feds to the punch so he could be near his family instead of at Leavenworth,” Marc answered. “He’s my grandfather, Ed, and I love him, but I don’t get involved with his business. Sorry.”

Ed drank some coffee to be polite. He didn’t really want any. His stomach was raw from the battery acid he’d consumed on Amtrak.

“This really isn’t anything to do with his business,” Ed said. “I guess what I really need is an introduction.”

“To…”

“You don’t want to know, do you?”

“But someone of his standing.”

“Yeah.” Ed set his cup and saucer back on the desk. He bent forward so far, his head was almost touching his knees. He felt very tired. “Marc, I’m afraid. I’m afraid one of my people is going to get killed. I need to reach out, but my arms aren’t long enough.

“Shit.”

“I know.”

Ed looked up and saw Marc’s smile.

“I’ll make a couple of calls,” Marc said. “No promises. He hates you Waspy types.”

“I’m Jewish.”

“I meant the bank.”

“I know,” Ed answered. “Thanks, Marc.”

“Would you like to stay for lunch?”

Lunch was three hours away. Even third-generation Yuppie Italians will always press you to stay for the next meal, Ed thought. They still cook in big pots.

“I have to get back to the office,” Ed said as he stood up. “Rain check?”

“You’ll be in town?”

“Right by the phone.”

“I’ll call. Come say good-bye to Theresa and the boys, or I’ll be in trouble all day.”

Ed went into the kitchen, where Johnny and Peter were wearing the ingredients of a big chocolate cake, and said his good-byes. He licked some frosting off the beater, kissed Theresa on the cheek, and made his way out without eating anything else. Marc shook his hand and gave him a little hug at the door.

Ed decided to walk down the hill to the office. As he walked, he thought it might be nice to get into another line of work, something that didn’t make you so paranoid. Something that didn’t set off internal alarm bells just because you saw a fraternity photograph of Marc Merolla arm in arm with Peter Hathaway.

Walter Withers woke up rough.

A Saharan thirst parched his throat, his head was full of cotton wadding, and he was shaking. Also, he didn’t know where he was. He rolled out of bed, shuffled to the bathroom, and threw up. He poured three glasses of water down his throat and threw up again.

I have to cut back on the sauce, he thought.

He went back into the bedroom and edged a corner of the drape open. Even the pale morning sunlight hurt his eyes as he looked out onto a deserted Route 50 and remembered where he was.

Austin, Nevada.

His mouth tasted like a mop that had just cleaned a subway rest room-or what he imagined that must taste like-and he desperately wanted to brush his teeth. The problem was that he couldn’t seem to locate his bag.

Deciding that he must have left it in his car, he opened the motel-room door, didn’t see any cars at all, and tried to remember the last time he had seen his.

Outside that grubby saloon.

He looked out the window again and didn’t see his car.