December 3, 2009
I
t was a short detour, maybe ten minutes out of his way, but it would take Michael Nicholas back a lifetime. He steered his car off the Grand Central Parkway and headed toward the quiet suburban street in Queens Village where he and his brother had grown up. It had been over twenty years since the last time he had passed by it, and even then, he had not paused to sift through his memories.
He drove up to the house, a two-story Tudor-style home on a manicured lawn, still looking like it did when he lived there. He parked across the street and reached over to the passenger seat for Alex’s laptop.
“What are you doing back there at the house?” Alex said.
Michael was taken back. “How do you know where I am?”
“I have a GPS system that allows me to track your location when you log onto me. I’ve just figured it out.”
As Michael began to speak, he thought about what an incredible advance this software—his brother—had just made.
“What am I doing here? I don’t know, I just thought that coming here, with you, maybe I could discover some insights, something to help me understand what is happening,” Michael said. He sat behind the wheel, alternating between looking at his childhood home and watching his brother on the laptop screen. “I guess I’m waiting for some revelation, something to connect the dots from a time and place where we once were together, to now, where we’re together again, but differently.”
“I wouldn’t waste your fuckin’ time.”
So much for deep insights
, Michael thought. Alex didn’t appear interested in an emotional experience or the “awakening” that Michael had intended for their visit. But he wasn’t going to give up.
“Alex, can you speak or communicate with the dead? A few days ago you seemed to indicate that you might at some point.”
“Michael, you know how you used to say that life is complicated?”
“Yes, I still say it. More than ever now.”
Alex’s face was blank. “Well, death is even more complicated. Believe it or not, the world here, if you can call it that, is divided into two groups: BI, Before Internet, and AI, After Internet. Finding or communicating with people is very different depending on
when
they lived and died.”
“You mean kind of like BC, Before Christ, and AD, the year he was born or whatever?”
“Something like that. I’m still trying to figure it out myself. I’m getting smarter, but it takes time. I was programmed to keep learning, you know. Unlike when I was alive.”
Michael sat back, trying to make sense of what Alex had said. But, as he played back the words and looked again at his old home, he felt a wave of memories passing through him.
“My first contact with death or even its very existence came the day our Uncle Tom died,” Michael said. “I thought of that day last week while I was watching Sharkey choking.”
“You were just a little kid. You were at home that day, weren’t you?”
“I was five. I remember it, Alex. Forty-five years ago, but I can see every minute detail. I can replay it, like a video in my head. I can see each room—his bedroom, ours, and then our parents’ bedroom, where I heard it all. It’s engraved in my brain, and I can feel it in the pit of my stomach, just as though I’m there right now and it’s happening in front of me.
“In some strange way, I cherish the memory because it’s always allowed me to put myself back in that precise moment, to remember everything around me on a particular day so early in my life. I’ve got a permanent picture, more vivid and precise than I ever could have had if hadn’t been so traumatic.”
“Uncle Tom was like another father, except he was home all the time. I always went to him whenever I did something wrong—which happened a lot. He was my protector as a kid,” Alex said.
Michael resumed his story. “It was an ideal world, to have two good parents and an older uncle living with you. He wasn’t that old, maybe late fifties when he died. He was a tall man, in good shape. I remember his frameless glasses and his short white hair—he had a crew cut. Mom said Uncle Tom had been a captain of a big Greek cargo ship. He used to take me everywhere. I hadn’t even started school yet. I remember he’d taken me for a few practice walks for the three blocks to my school, I guess so I’d be more comfortable on the day he would actually walk me there. But, looking back, it was like he was preparing me for the walk without him.” Michael paused and looked at the computer screen. He could see that Alex was processing the story from so long ago that impacted both of them.
“I was out playing ball that day. It was a summer morning. I’ve never heard you talk about it. Everything I remember, I heard from our mother,” Alex said.
Michael continued. “I was in the kitchen. He had made me my breakfast, soft-boiled eggs, and then he went upstairs to his bedroom. He told me he wasn’t feeling well, but the way he said it, it didn’t sound like any big deal. The next thing I knew, Mom was with him in his room upstairs—she was by his bed. He was having a heart attack. She ran to the phone to call an ambulance, and in the rush, forgot about me for a minute or so.
“So I watched him, from his bedroom door. I was scared. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I knew it was terrible. Mom called out to Peggy, our housekeeper, to take me away, but I ran to join her in her bedroom. She was on the phone, fighting with the operator who evidently wasn’t going fast enough or tried to put her on hold. And I was standing there, by her side, watching and listening. I was worried about catching germs. I was so young.”
“What happened then?”
“She went back to his bedroom, and they made me stay in Mom’s bedroom, but I could hear everything. She was asking if he wanted water, telling him help was coming. I could tell she was helpless. I don’t think he was saying anything. And then I heard it. The most terrifying sound I have ever heard, even today.”
“What was it?” Alex said. He looked somber, as though it had just happened.
“He was kind of choking. I couldn’t understand what the sound was then. I had no idea, although it was so gruesome I knew it was bad, very bad. I know now it was his death rattle.”
Alex stared ahead. He showed no reaction. Michael wasn’t sure what, if anything, his brother was thinking or whether Alex actually
could
think. He wondered what was going on behind that screenshot, that seemingly live image of the person who was supposed to be dead. But Michael wanted so badly to believe his brother was really there in front of him and not at Saint Michael’s with every other dead relative.
Michael continued, “I’m sure that in my own final moments, I’ll think of that terrible scene. I’ve been drawn back to it all my life. I know it’ll be with me to my own end. It’s shaped how I feel about death—and life. You know, how fragile and fleeting it all is.”
Michael and Alex looked at each other in silence, nearly mirror images. “From that day on,” Michael said, “I knew life didn’t last forever.”
Chapter 40
South Beach, Florida
December 5, 2009
M
iami was steamy. Despite what every doctor and morning news show medical analyst advised, Michael always felt like the sun and a tan did wonders for his health. It certainly made him feel good.
Michael wanted to formally announce his decision regarding Alex’s business to Donna and the Lesters. Since Donna was already vacationing in Miami, Michael flew down with Samantha and the Lesters. Michael called it an “off-site management meeting,” which had Fat Lester confused and concerned until he realized that it didn’t matter, because Michael was picking up the tab.
Michael booked their usual junior suite at the Setai in South Beach, where Donna was also staying. He then booked Fat and Skinny Lester at a discreet distance away in the South Beach Marriot. Although Michael had come to trust and cherish both Lesters, he could not envision Fat Lester lounging at the pool of the Setai, with its international clientele and its understated almost Zen-like atmosphere. Alex himself would have checked out before he even made it up to his room. It was, Michael thought to himself, perhaps one of the remaining differences between them.
DeVito’s restaurant, however, at the foot of South Beach was anything but Zen-like. Danny DeVito wasn’t in town, but Frank Sinatra’s recorded voice filled the air while the waiters rolled by with eight-pound lobsters and sizzling Kobe beefsteaks that almost looked like they were worth the astronomical prices on the menu. The décor was a combination of Tuscan villa and 1940s Hollywood glitz. The deep-red Venetian crystal chandeliers softly illuminated the bright-white leather chairs, but mostly spotlighted a bevy of discontinued models: tall, young blondes accompanied by deeply tanned men twice their age.
Despite smoking restrictions, there was a whiff of cigar smoke in the air. This was a macho man’s place, Michael thought to himself.
Donna approached the table wearing her oversized Dior sunglasses, despite the evening shade, and a short, tight white skirt showing off her shapely legs and slim ankles. Michael noticed that she attracted the leering glances of the open-shirted, gold-chain male crowd in DeVito’s that night. He knew, just watching her stroll to the table, that it wouldn’t be long before Donna lined up a new husband.
They sat out on the patio overlooking the crowd of partygoers, strollers, and the stream of cars on Ocean Drive. In the near horizon, the sand and the Atlantic Ocean were vaguely visible in the darkening night.
Their waiter looked like he had played for the Italian football team twenty years ago. “I’ll have a dry Blue Sapphire martini and Greta Garbo here will have a Grey Goose cosmo.” As Michael smiled at Donna, Fat and Skinny Lester, distracted and captivated by the parade of scantily clad women all around them, each ordered a Dewar’s on the rocks.
“Samantha’s just spending a quiet night in her room watching some movies and enjoying room service. She’ll see you tomorrow at the pool,” Michael said, looking at Donna. He was relieved Samantha had backed out of the dinner, otherwise, he would have had to arrange a daytime meeting while she was shopping so he could make his announcement. He knew he would need to filter or at least carefully position any such conversation with his wife.
“She’s also not crazy about DeVito’s. Just a little too much testosterone here for her.” Or, Michael thought, maybe just too many young blondes. Michael chose to keep that thought to himself.
After a round of drinks and the usual small talk, everyone dug into their first course. Michael took charge of the dinner conversation. Although keeping a low tone so he wouldn’t be overheard beyond their table, Michael was confident and firm.
“We’ve all gotten through a lot in the past month. Together, we’ve collected the money due Alex, paid all the money out that Alex owed others—except, of course, for the two hundred thousand we charged Sharkey for being greedy. We’ve uncovered the three million that Alex had stashed away.
“I’m going to be sure that the money is distributed in a way that my brother would have wanted. Most of the money, of course, is going to Donna and George. But,” Michael continued, looking at the two Lesters, “I’m also sure Alex would have wanted you guys to receive something in his memory. I’m going to sit down and work out the details next week with Donna, but I wanted you both to know that you’ll be getting some part of that money.”
Skinny Lester was the first to respond. “Michael, Donna, you both have been like family to us. I think I can speak for Lester, too, when I say that we didn’t expect anything from the cash Alex left. Alex always paid us well. Better than we could have done anywhere on our own. I could have never done this well driving a taxi, which is the only thing that college ever really prepared me for.”
Fat Lester finally had organized his thoughts. He said, “Other than my cousin here, Alex was my only family. No one else even talks to me. My own family thinks I’m no good. Alex always respected me, even through my booze and drug problems. I didn’t even like myself. I don’t know how he put up with me.” A tear glistened in his eye and threatened to roll down his cheek. Fat Lester stopped speaking.
Michael continued, “There’s something else I want to talk about. I want to keep Alex’s business alive. I’m going to run it. Hopefully, I can do half the job that Alex did. I’m going to need your help, both of you,” he said, looking again at Fat and Skinny Lester.
Michael then turned toward Donna. “Donna, we can discuss some of the numbers when we sit down together, but I’m offering you the opportunity to invest in the business a portion of the money Alex left you. This way, we can grow it further, and you’ll hopefully have a steady stream of income.”
“Michael,” Donna said, “I’m shocked. What about your job? I never dreamed you’d want to do this. Other than being shocked, though, I think it’s a great idea. I’m definitely in, at least as long as I get to keep a good portion of what’s coming to me. I trust you, you’re brilliant, but I don’t want to totally roll the dice. You understand, don’t you?”
“I do and don’t worry. There’s enough money to go around. Also, I’m going to invest some of my own money in this. As for my Gibraltar position, frankly, I’m bored and I expect to be fired any day now after the speech I gave in LA.”
Michael then laid out his quick vision for the new enterprise. “We’re going to have basically three lines of business. First, sports betting, college and pro football and basketball, and major-league baseball. Second, loan-sharking. Citibank is charging me nearly 30 percent on my credit card. From what I’ve been hearing and looking at how Alex did it, we can charge anywhere from 50 to 250 percent interest, depending on the borrower and how risky the loan. Finally, we’ll do some limited horse racing—but if it involves big dollars and long shots, we’ll lay it off using OTB just like Alex did so we don’t incur the risk.”
Both Lesters had their mouths open in shock. Skinny Lester was the first to speak up with, “I’m in.” Fat Lester added, “Good shit.”
“By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you, Michael, what else did you ever find on Alex’s laptop besides the location of the cash?”