'I don't know, but that kind of money seems kind of high for a rehab joint, especially when he could probably just check himself into detox. It would, though, be just enough money if you wanted to disap pear.'
'Fifty grand might get you somewhere,' I said, 'but is it enough to start a new life?'
'Maybe not,' she said. 'But it might be enough to survive.'
20
We arrived back home feeling like we'd taken a few too many punches to the head. So many thoughts and ideas were swimming around in there-mixed in with the fear and apprehension of what my father was going through-that I wished we could just curl up in bed, fall asleep for a month or two and wake up with everything back to normal.
Even if we did manage to prove that my father didn't kill Stephen, James Parker would go right back to Bend where he would reenter that joke of a life. My mother hadn't even come because he refused to let her. He wouldn't be seen like this. Chained. Weak. And knowing my mother, she wouldn't question it.
I wondered if it was worth it. Saving him. Maybe the universe was a little more right with James Parker in jail.
Maybe I was saving a man who didn't deserve to be saved.
Yet here I was, doing what needed to be done. Trying to find the proof that would free him. I wondered if he would do the same for me. The answer was fairly obvious.
I thought about the money Helen Gaines had asked for. Amanda was right. If Stephen's aim was to check into rehab, fifty grand was overkill. It could have been for more drugs, I supposed, but if the two of them had subsisted for nearly thirty years to this point, it didn't make sense that they suddenly needed a lump sum to sate their cravings.
From what it seemed like, the dealers I'd seen the other day had more than enough business to keep them going. True, on the surface the ones I saw looked far more put together than my brother. Scott Callahan and
Kyle Evans barely looked like they touched the stuff.
What was the old drug dealer's maxim-never get high on your own supply?
These two, as well as their well-heeled cohorts, looked as if they were in this game to make as much money as possible. With the exception of the kid whose briefcase now sat in my living room, they all looked like red-meat alpha males, the kind of guys who would normally be braying on the floor of the stock exchange rather than riding the subway to dole out dime bags.
Thing is, the cocaine in the briefcase made it clear that not all of their scores were small-time. Any company built its business on a combination of small revenue streams mixed with larger ones. The larger ones took more effort and paid higher dividends, but the smaller ones tended to be the most dependable, the ones that would always be there.
With the economy tanking the way it was, with people watching their wallets to a degree I'd never ex perienced in my lifetime, it wouldn't surprise me if dis posable income for recreational drugs-like it was for
all other consumer products-was being severely limited. Especially since coke was a favorite amongst bankers, financiers (i.e., high-salaried types). The kind of people whose livelihoods were being dashed against the rocks as the economy tumbled.
Maybe Stephen and Helen really were trying to start a new life. After all, Helen had desired nothing more than to raise her son with James Parker (why on God's green earth she would want to do this is an entirely dif ferent matter. One I'm not sure had a satisfactory answer).
Leaving the country would enable them to start their lives anew, to begin fresh somewhere they weren't known. Where demons and drugs wouldn't follow them.
But that last word…Fury. I still didn't know what it meant, if anything. It might have been a spasm, some thing Helen Gaines wrote while her mental faculties bounced around like Ping-Pong balls.
I put it on the back burner. If it was relevant, it would come up again.
The apartment felt warm and inviting, though compared to the visitation room in a correctional facility an icebox would have felt warm and inviting. We both stripped off our clothes, Amanda jumping into the shower while I pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.
Before long, steam was pouring through the slat in between the door and the tiling.
I approached the door silently, then knocked gently.
There was no answer. I knocked again, and when there was still no reply I knocked again, louder.
One more knock and I heard the water turn off.
'What is it, Henry?' She sounded annoyed.
'Just wanted to say hi,' I said. 'Go back to your shower.'
'Gee, thanks.'
The water came back on. Good thing there was no lock on the bathroom door.
I gently turned the knob, the cool air flowing into my face. I could see Amanda's body hazy behind the shower glass. She hadn't seen me yet.
I stripped off my shorts, flung the T-shirt onto a chair.
Then I pulled open the shower door.
Amanda spun around, shampoo in her hair. The look on her face quickly went from annoyance to surprise to pleasure. She pushed the door open and I joined her, wrapping my body around her, feeling her warmth surround me.
We kissed, and then our bodies were clinging to each other, skin on skin. Pain and hurt and everything else melted away as we touched. My body was on fire as I kissed her neck, Amanda throwing her head back as she sighed. I kissed her up and down her body, feeling her skin tingle below my fingertips. Then I pressed myself against her, hard, and she moved in perfect rhythm with my body.
We touched and held and moved against each other under that beating stream for a long time, until the heat became so unbearable that we ended up in bed, naked, clinging to each other like we always did when we wanted the world to melt away for a little while.
I left Amanda sleeping in bed and crept into the living room. Booting the computer up, I poured myself a cup of ice coffee from the jug we kept in the fridge. I took a sip. Stale. It'd probably been sitting in there close to a week. I checked the freezer, but we were fresh out of grounds. Instead, I poured a healthy dollop of milk, added enough sweetener to make my teeth chatter and sat down.
Our Internet connection was spotty at best, so it was a sigh of relief when my home page came up. I'd changed my preferences so that the Gazette 's page would load whenever I opened my browser. I took a moment to read the latest stories, then went to Google and began my search.
I typed in the name 'Scott Callahan.' To no great surprise, over four thousand entries came up. To refine the search, I added 'New York.'
That narrowed it down to under a thousand. There were a few wedding notices and Web sites for law offices, but unfortunately none of them had any pictures. I scrolled through a few dozen pages hoping for something that would perhaps be linked to the Scott
Callahan I followed the other day, but nothing came up.
I went back to the Google home page and typed in
'Kyle Evans' and 'New York.' Two thousand entries came up. I sighed, having no choice but to slog through.
Nothing seemed to be terribly interesting until the fourth page. The page title was 'Dozens laid off in wake of financial collapse.' I clicked the link.
The article was from a financial magazine, dated about six months ago. It was a feature on the recent meltdowns of several financial institutions and the decision to lay off massive numbers of workers, some of whom had just graduated from business school. The author had interviewed several recently fired employ ees, including one man named Kyle Evans.
The section read:
Kyle Evans expected to pay off his student loans in a matter of months, having taken a six-figure job right
