Mule (28 page)

When I'd bother to take his calls, I'd tell him, "I've been doing this for a year, Darren. I've been managing fine without you."

"But you haven't been doing everything right, James."

"Yeah? Like what? Tell me one thing I haven't done right."

"I can't tell you on the phone. I'll tell you when I get there."

"Aren't you happy with the money I've been sending you, man?"

"This isn't about that. This is about doing everything right so you can make even more. For years and years to come. For the rest of your life. Give me your address and I'll just show up and knock on your door."

I could hear the urgency in his voice, knew better than to ask about his real estate and financial problems, reveal that Billy had told me about the trouble he'd had in Thailand. "I'm not giving you my address over the phone, Darren."

"Then mail it to me. So what? Why do you keep putting me off like this?"

"Let me think about it," I'd said the first dozen times he'd called. When he kept hammering away, I finally told him, "I'm going to have to talk to my wife."

You want Darren to come out here? I asked Kate one day when she came home from early Christmas shopping with Cristina and the kids. What did Darren want to come out here for? she asked me as she set her many colorfully wrapped packages on the kitchen counter.

"He says he has things he wants to explain to me about the business."

Kate didn't even look at me as she shook her head. She said, "No way. He wants to meet Eric and cut you out. Tell him I said we have the babies to think about now. Tell him I don't want drug dealers around my kids."

I called Darren back, gladly told him that. He was pissed right away. He said, "What the fuck are you supposed to be then, James?"

"I'm supposed to be Kate's husband."

"Oh yeah? Why don't you ask Kate what would happen if I cut off your flow?"

"What would happen is you'd lose as much money as I would."

"I came back from Thailand especially to see you."

"I didn't ask you to do that."

"Don't you want to know all the things I have to tell you?"

"I got four hundred Gs banked telling me I already know a lot."

Darren started whining. "Come on, James. I'll stay in a hotel. What's the big problem? I've been wanting to visit Florida since the day I got back."

"Great, man. Be my guest. It's a really big state. Go see St. Augustine, drive down to Key West. You're welcome to visit every inch of the place. But the one place you can't come is here."

"After everything I've done for you. How can you even think about doing this to me?"

I didn't say anything at first. Then I decided I wasn't afraid of him. I said in a calm voice, "Do you really have to ask?"

The next time I talked to Billy, he said, "What the fuck did you say to Darren?"

"I told him he can't come here. He says he has all this shit he wants to tell me. I told him I don't want to know it."

"Did you mention anything about Thailand?"

"I wouldn't do that to you."

Billy sniffed. "The dude's riding around in a rage. About you. About Thailand. About the money he's lost and everything. Things are getting fucking gnarly out here."

I was sitting on my patio that day, two weeks before Christmas, looking at my flowering trees and tropical yard. Out on the grass, Kate and Cristina sat on a checkered picnic blanket blowing bubbles with the children. Blowing fucking bubbles. They didn't know anything about what I was dealing with now. They didn't know what had happened in New York or that I felt like slime. As I looked at them, I said to Billy, "You know what? Darren can cut me out if he wants to. I'm not sure I'd even care."

"He would if he could. But now he can't afford it. Still, I'm supposed to talk to Jerome and cut as much away from you as possible."

"Do whatever you have to do." Then I said, "Why did you tell me all that stuff about Darren anyway?"

Billy was quiet. Then: "You know what I'm looking at right now? Big rafts of clouds scudding in over Bodega Bay. The beach, my dogs running on it. It's beautiful. It's a fucking dream. This is all I ever wanted out of this. But it's come with so much more. I don't know why I tell you anything, James. I like you. You're decent. I've enjoyed sitting down with you and talking about our kids. I'd even like to work for someone like you, if someone like you needed someone like me to do work for him one day."

"I'm not going to be in the business much longer, Billy."

"I'd come out there for you if you were," he said. "Take care of yourself, especially if you're going to try to get out. Your family? Your kids? Put them first. And always, always drive fast and swerve a lot."

"Same to you, bro."

 

Just before Christmas, I ran weight up to New York again. Was I carrying coke? I'd asked Deveny at his house when I'd dropped off the Cali load, picked up the suitcases. What if I was? he'd smiled and said. I'd said, "Then I want more fucking money."

When I reached that building in New York the following afternoon, Danielle opened her door. "Coming in?" she said.

"I asked the car to wait."

"Yeah, I have some company over anyway."

She took the suitcases inside, came back with a heavy gym bag. She said, "See you in two weeks?"

"You know you will."

"The Capital Cities Connection, right?"

"That's what we named it."

"Drive fast and swerve a lot?"

"That's what we say."

I took the elevator to the lobby, jogged down the steps to the waiting car. It was snowing, a winter's day. This time, the city felt as cold and dead around me as I did inside. What had Danielle been thinking about it all? Did she feel as disgusted with herself as I did? Her laser beam had not made my beard grow back. Of course it hadn't been meant for that.

"Surprised to see you here so soon," Deveny said, winking, when I walked into his house two mornings later with the money. We went out to Z. Bardhi's for lunch: zuppa de mare, filetto di manzo. He was happy, eating with gusto, stabbing the air with his knife as he rubbed in his victory over me. He said, "I knew you wouldn't be able to keep your hands off her. That sick dime? And that's before she opens her mouth. I know you, my man. You've been thinking this whole time you're above all this. That you don't do it for the same reasons as me. But every time I look up, you're sitting across one of these tables, coming back for more. Do you know what that's called, James? It's called greed. Want to know something that will make you happy? I've never touched Danielle. It's always been strictly business between us. So pin your medal on your chest and enjoy yourself up there."

"She told you?"

"She tells me everything. She told me something else. She said there's a dark streak inside of you. She said you broke a couple of her antique chairs—it was an expensive night up there. But I already knew that about you, didn't I?" He winked again. "Hand-to-fucking-hand, right, my man?"

Eric beckoned the waiter for another bottle of wine. "The Briolo?" the waiter asked. "The Barone," Eric said. He cocked his eyebrow at me. "So, how long did you have it planned?"

"I didn't plan it. We started drinking. All of a sudden the lines came out."

He shook his head. "That's it? That's all you have to say about it? No way are you getting off that easy. Because it wasn't just anyone, was it? You could've had a girl up here anytime. But you didn't want a girl up here. Remember that? You? Danielle was good enough for you. You started talking to her and she told you all the things she's done. She told you all about her front and her big plans. Then she started to talk about your place in it, and you began to think about it. You couldn't help yourself. Because you're like me. Nothing will ever be enough for you. Isn't that right, James?"

I didn't say anything.

"Keep lying to yourself. If you're sitting here with me, you're like me. You know something else? You've always been exactly who you are. Even before you got born in my house. You couldn't have got born in my house if you hadn't already been conceived. Too late—now you've got to keep it from your wife. But you're used to keeping things from your wife, aren't you?" He smiled, shook his head, sat back from the table. "I'm proud of you. Danielle? Mad tight, right? Complete package? Not cheap sex at all. Nothing base for my man. That's how I knew it had to be her. For once in my life, I envy you. Did you think you'd come so far so fast?"

"I don't know what I thought."

"Did you think you'd do as well as you have?"

"I've only ever thought about the work."

"Just a simple mule?"

"If that's what you want to call it."

"That's what I have to call it, James. That's what it's called."

He said, "You remember the night we met? That party? How you came out of nowhere? Blasted that kid off his ass? Blew my mind away with the possibilities? A California source fallen right in my fucking lap? Do you remember what I said to you out there that night?"

"'What kind of sign are we standing under?'"

"That's right. And here we are again. Do you have any idea how many rules I broke for you? You could have been anybody. You could have been coming to put pain on me. But I had to take that chance. And then there you were, waiting like any of us to put your hands on the money."

"Money, money, money."

"That's where we're at. Don't you know we're going to do so much work together? Don't you know we're going to know each other for a long time? Anyway, enjoy yourself up there. You deserve it. I'm bumping up your weight after New Year's."

It was then that a woman came to our table, tall, blond, attractive, in a sheer black dress. Eric had cocked his chin to point her out to me when we'd been seated. She'd been dining alone, drinking wine alone, had started glancing at him from across the room as soon as we sat down. Her glances had grown more insistent after every glass she polished off. She stumbled once in her heels as she made her way over to us, laughed it away, steadied herself with her fingers on the edge of our table. French manicure. I looked up: delicate curves, silky hair. There was no one else in the dining room but the three of us. "I hope this doesn't embarrass you," she said, "but weren't you in some kind of movie?"

She was talking to him, of course. Eric shot me a look like he couldn't believe it, when we both knew he could. "Superstar," I whispered, sitting back from the table to give them room to work. She tousled the ends of her hair in case he hadn't already figured it out. "I was supposed to meet somebody here," she said and shrugged. "Apparently somebody wasn't aware of that."

Eric looked her up and down. He said, "Then somebody's out of his fucking mind. I'd invite you to join us, but I'm stuck in a business thing with my man right here."

"Hi," she said without looking at me. Then she said, "I'm here for business myself. They upgraded me at the Governors. I have the Jacuzzi suite. Looks like it's going to go to waste before I have to leave town forever."

"Leave town forever?"

"I'm only here for the day."

Eric pulled out a cell, took her number.

"So what was that movie?" she said.

He grinned. "I'll tell you about it later."

After she left, Eric and I looked at each other. He said, "I love spending time with you, my man. Nice things always fall in my lap whenever I do." He stood to leave. "Had enough yet, James? Want to give me your connection?"

Could I give it to him? Would he let me go if I did?

I shook my head. "No."

"See you in two weeks. Kiss your pretty wife for me."

 

Deveny was right about one thing at that lunch: my wife in fact was pretty. But what about the other things he'd said?

Out there on the road, going home from New York the day after what I'd done with Danielle, as I ground out the miles, I imagined I'd be able to find a way to make it feel like the night hadn't really happened. But as the miles went on and on, the only thing I knew was that it really had happened. Had I enjoyed it? Had it felt good? I thought of Danielle's naked body—yeah, I'd enjoyed it; yes, it had felt good. But wasn't it also the worst thing I'd ever done? Far, far beyond anything else? Yes, it was also that.

And was this how people felt after they'd done something like that? I'd asked myself on the road. Yeah, this was how they felt. And was this also how they had to continue with their lives afterward? Yes, this was how they had to do that, too. Find a place deep inside to bury it, always keep it there. Did I have a hole in me deep enough? There was no choice any longer; there would have to be.

Had Kate been suspicious of me when I'd come home the following day? Kate hadn't suspected a thing. She'd been trying on clothes in our bedroom when I'd walked in, had wanted to know how I thought she looked in them. My daughter had run to me, grabbed my leg; my son had been cooing in his mittens on a blanket on the bed. For once in our lives, there we'd all been, my family together in the room.

"Notice anything different about me, James?" my wife had asked as she'd twirled for me in her outfit. It had been a pair of denims and a powder-blue blouse. Didn't she always wear things like that?

I'd said, "Your hair's longer. Or else you've had it trimmed."

She'd shaken her head, disappointed by me again. "I'm back to my normal weight. I've been working really hard at it. That's okay, I shouldn't have asked. I know what you're like when you've just walked in from work."

Wait! something in me had wanted to cry out to her. But she'd already turned away. "Everything going okay out there?"

"Everything's fine."

We'd been quiet then, Kate taking off her new outfit in the room with the children, me in the walk-in closet alone, stripping off my driving clothes, tossing them into the hamper. "What are we doing for New Year's, James?" Kate had called in to me. "I can party this year, you know? Cristina's already made plans with one of those beach volleyball guys she's been kicking it with. I talked to your mom. She said she'd watch the kids for us."

In the closet, I'd had the gym bag with me, in it the money I'd earned driving, and having drugs driven, around the country. The dirty clothes I'd been wearing when I'd cheated on my wife two nights before were in there, too. I'd crouched, listened for Kate, then lifted out those clothes and smelled them. They'd smelled like smoke and beer, made me feel like an asshole all over again. I'd buried them in the bottom of the hamper like the evidence against me that they were. In my motel room in Savannah the night before, I'd showered and showered: it hadn't done anything to make me feel clean. I hadn't gotten any sleep in that room either, beating myself up in my mind for the awful thing I'd done.