“Kids. Can’t live with them, can’t chain ’em up in the basement.” Richard wore boat shoes without socks, and extended a hand that was softer than you’d expect from a guy in construction. “Want a drink?”
He started inside without waiting for an answer. Danny followed, wiping his feet on the mat before stepping on the living room’s soft carpeting. Shafts of sunlight splashed across professionally decorated rooms. Everything smelled faintly of lemon. Richard led the way to his private office at the end of the hall. A sumptuous leather couch rested beneath an abstract canvas of scarlet and black. On the walnut desk sat twin flat-screen monitors, both of them displaying graphs and stock quotes. Richard glanced over distastefully, then hurried to shut them off. “And the goddamn market’s more irritating than the kid.”
“Bad run?”
“I’m taking a bath. I got in on these sure-thing tech stocks? I may as well have just gone to Arlington, put Tommy’s college fund on the ponies.” He stepped to an antique bar and poured single-malt into Waterford glasses.
Danny had never seen much difference between the stock market and betting on a football game, except that in another one of those ironies legitimate life afforded, day traders were likelier than bookies to show up with a rifle and start shooting strangers. Richard passed him the scotch, dropped into a leather chair, put his feet on a custom ottoman, and continued ranting about his bad luck.
Richard considered himself a self-made man, claiming he’d turned “a trailer, a toolbox, and a tower of bills” into a company employing nearly forty men. When he told the story – which was often – he always skimped on the details of how he’d accomplished it. The reason was simple: He hadn’t. Richard had inherited the company, and before he adopted Danny as his lieutenant, he’d been busily running it into the ground.
It’d taken less than two years for Danny’s strategic sense and hands-dirty experience to turn things around. He made it possible for Richard to earn a profit without troubling to learn anything about the business. It was an arrangement that suited Danny fine. He’d always preferred running things to carrying them, and as dense as Richard could be, he was smart enough to know that taking care of Danny was equivalent to taking care of himself.
Still, it involved a lot of stupid errands like this one. Saturday afternoon, and he had to endure twenty minutes of babble about the post-Internet market and the dangers of IPOs before Richard finally asked about the bids Danny had brought.
“Right here.” He took the documents from his satchel. “I pulled them together last night.”
“Heya, you shouldn’t be working Friday nights.”
Considering the opportunity had surprised them yesterday morning and that the deadline was this afternoon, Danny wasn’t sure when else Richard had thought it would get done, but he told him it was no trouble. “Just sign the last page. I’ll drop them off.”
Richard smiled. “Attaboy. Full service.” He glanced at the documents, nodded, and scribbled his name with a gold pen he took from his pocket. “I’m going for lunch at the club. You like, you can tag along.”
“Got plans.”
His boss nodded absently, the offer already forgotten. They chatted for another few minutes, and then Richard made a show of looking at his watch. Grateful for the dismissal, Danny finished his scotch and saw himself out. He’d promised Karen a date, and he intended to make good.
The afternoon had turned out gorgeous, leaves glowing on the trees, sunlight warm on their shoulders. The Lincoln Park Zoo was mobbed, but neither of them minded. They joined the crowd, watching the sea li ons circle endlessly; laughing at the flamingos’ awkward poses; feeling a delighted shiver as a lion used its rough tongue to scrape chunks of meat from a bone the size of a canned ham. Danny sprang for cotton candy, and they sat on a bench and shared it.
When they were finished, he got up to throw the wadded plastic bag in the trash. On his way back he had one of those flashes when he saw her, really saw her. Not through the myopic eyes of habit and time, but as a real person, self-possessed and smiling. How had he gotten so lucky? Not only to get out, but to do it with a woman who knew his past yet was willing to bet on their future. He sat down, then spun and laid his head in her lap. She stroked his hair while the sky burned blue and the wind tossed autumn branches in kaleidoscope patterns.
“Happy.” He sighed. “Very happy.”
She snorted. “You better be. You want me to peel you a grape?”
He laughed and closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of rattling leaves and the joyful burble of Saturday people. Then something collided with their bench. Danny’s instincts jerked his eyes open and had him bolt upright before he recognized it as a kid, a black boy maybe five years old. The kid paused for a moment and flashed them a dazzling smile, all dimples and white teeth, then rebounded off the bench in the opposite direction. He joined a group of children playing tag in front of the gibbons’ cage, shouting as they raced the restless animals. Danny settled back to find Karen smiling down at him.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said, in the tone that meant it wasn’t nothing.
“Really, what?”
“You ever think about having one of those?”
“A little black boy?”
She laughed and bobbled his head with her knee. “I’m serious.”
“Really?” He could hear the surprise in his own voice. “A kid?”
She looked away, then back. “No pressure.”
“No, I just…” In truth, he hadn’t much thought about it. “I don’t know. It’s scary.” He had a flash of Dad’s pained expression as he stared around the visiting room of Cook County Correctional. That had been hard. But how much harder to endure the same bafflement and hurt on the face of a son? He’d long ago sworn never to have a kid so long as he lived the life.
But then, he didn’t anymore. It was a fact that continued to surprise and please him, like discovering a wad of cash in the pocket of a coat he rarely wore. He’d been straight for years, with a job, a home, and a relationship to prove it. Though he and Karen had never done the wedding thing, it was only because the ritual meant nothing to them. He didn’t need a ring to be faithful. And they both brought in solid money – far more than he had been able to count on hustling.
Maybe in this new world he could be a father. Maybe such a thing was possible. If Danny Carter could have health insurance and mortgage payments, why not this?
“What would we name him?”
She laughed. “You mean her.” And bent down to press her soft lips to his, under skies blowing wild as the hope in his heart.
7
It took Danny thirty minutes to fight his way down Clark, and another ten to find a parking place. The Cubs looked good, and the streets and sidewalks were thronged with fans hoping that maybe this year they wouldn’t get their hearts broken. Danny was just hoping to finish his errands and get home before the sun set. It was Sunday, another beautiful day, and he had a date with an Elmore Leonard novel and the lounge chair on his fire escape.
He walked two blocks to a copy and shipping place. The air-conditioning inside felt stale. Two bucks in quarters and ten minutes worth of forms later, he was finally done with work. The girl who checked him out asked if he wanted anything else.
“Just a beer,” he said, and smiled.
She smiled back, a flirtatious look Danny didn’t respond to. Just waved and strolled out, thinking of the easiest way to get home. He could probably cut over to Halsted and dodge some of the traffic.
Evan stood in front of him.
Danny dropped his bag. Chemicals pounded through his bloodstream, his nerves gauging fight or flight.