Julian stood up, shook the man’s hand and did the half-body hug. The man kissed Ramona’s hand, then went for Lucy’s. Then he got to me.
“Do I have the pleasure of finally meeting your friend?”
“Indeed you do. Wesley, this is Mikhail. All the way from Moscow.”
“I’m honored,” he said. “I hope you had a good trip.”
“He doesn’t speak any English,” Julian said. “He refuses to learn even a single word.”
That seemed to impress the man profoundly. “I hope you’ll enjoy the hospitality of my club tonight,” he said, shaking my hand. “Even though I realize you have no idea what the fuck I’m saying.”
He laughed at his own joke. Then he whispered something into Julian’s ear. Then he was gone.
“You made an impression,” Julian said to me. “He thinks you’re beautiful, too.”
“Americans are suckers for Russians,” Ramona said.
Just roll with it, I thought. For once, I’m glad I can’t say the wrong thing.
Julian took a sip of champagne, then looked at his watch.
“Now that we know our man Wesley is on the premises…”
“Let’s go,” Lucy said, standing up and taking my hand. “You and me.”
Julian and Ramona stayed in their seats. As I stood up, I spotted our host on the other side of the balcony, putting the power schmooze on another table. I nodded toward him, and Julian gave me a little smile.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s the man we’re taking down tonight.”
Thirteen
Michigan
July 1999
Mr. Marsh led me out into his backyard. I had been there once before, of course, but it had been dark then, and I hadn’t really been paying much attention to the landscaping. In the bright light of day, I could see that the grass had recently been planted, a thousand green shoots poking their way up through a thin layer of straw. There was about a half acre or so, ending in a line of trees that looked like part of an old apple orchard.
“You guys didn’t do my new grass any favors, either,” he said, pointing to a wide patch of new straw. “I should have waited and made you fix it.”
I looked down and saw four different sets of footprints.
“Anyway, if you really want to take this rap all by yourself, you’re going to be mighty lonely back here.”
Meaning what, exactly?
He walked out into the yard, stopping about twenty yards from the house. He picked up a shovel he had apparently left there. It was brand-new, with a yellow fiberglass handle and a shiny blade that had yet to touch dirt. A few yards away was a wheelbarrow with the price tag still taped to one of its handles.
“They asked me to have some sort of work for you to do for me,” he said. “Four hours a day, six days a week. For the rest of the summer. That’s a lot of time.”
He handed me the shovel.
“I marked it out,” he said. “Make sure you follow the lines exactly.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. Until I noticed the length of twine at his feet. It was strung along a series of wooden pegs, one inch above the straw. I followed the line, maybe thirty feet or so until it took a right turn. Then three more right turns to complete a large rectangle.
“Don’t worry about depth yet. Just start and we’ll see how it looks, eh? When you fill up the wheelbarrow, just take it over to that spot by the trees and dump it.”
This was going to be a swimming pool. The man actually expected me to dig him a swimming pool in his backyard.
“There’s a plastic jug over there by the faucet,” he said. “That’s how you get your water. You need to take a piss, you use the woods. I’ll let you know when it’s four o’clock. Any questions?”
He waited for a few seconds, as if I’d actually say something.
“Let’s get one more thing straight here,” he said. “You’re dealing directly with me and nobody else. You don’t step foot in the house unless I tell you to. As far as my daughter goes, well, I’m just hoping that if she sees you working back here, maybe she’ll realize you’re not so terrifying. You hear what I’m saying? I want her to see that you’re just a cheap punk and not a monster so she can sleep at night. Beyond that you have nothing to do with her. If I see you so much as look at her sideways, I will kill you. You got that?”
I held the shovel. I looked at him. I felt the sun beating down on my back.
“My son, on the other hand… like I said, he’s already up in East Lansing, so you probably won’t get to meet him. You better pray you don’t, actually, because if he ever comes home and sees you… let’s just say I won’t have to worry about killing you anymore.”
He stopped, shook his head, and did a bad job fighting off a smile.
“I’ll be out later to check on you,” he said. “Remember, one word from me and you get sent to the juvie camp. So you sure as hell better get digging.”
I watched him walk away from me. He didn’t look back. When he opened the door and disappeared, I just stood there for a while, looking around me at the great rectangle marked in the grass and straw. There wasn’t a single cloud to pass above me. No trees to offer their shade. I swallowed hard and dug my shovel into the ground. I lifted a small mound of dirt and carried it over to the wheelbarrow. The dirt hit with a hollow thump.
One down. Seven million to go.
There are prison programs where you leave the grounds for a few hours every day to help out on some kind of project or other. Clearing out debris from a demolition, say, or maybe even helping to build something if you have the skills. It’s a chance to get out of the prison, ride a bus down a real street, see real women walking along on the sidewalk, then to actually do something constructive when you get there. Most inmates would gladly stick a knife in someone else’s back to get that kind of assignment.
It’s not like in the old days, like when they made the prisoners themselves build Sing Sing from the ground up. With regular whippings for anyone who didn’t pull their weight. No, they just don’t do that kind of thing anymore. No more backbreaking labor. No more rock piles and sledgehammers. No more whippings. They sure as hell don’t stick you in the middle of a field by yourself and tell you to start digging a swimming pool. That kind of cruel and unusual punishment would get a modern warden fired by the end of the first day.
But I wasn’t in a prison. I was here in the Marshes’ backyard and would be here everyday except Sundays. For the rest of the summer. I didn’t think I had much choice in the matter. I sure as hell didn’t want to find out if that juvie camp was an idle threat. So I put the shovel back in the ground, pushed down with my foot, lifted the dirt, and threw it into the wheelbarrow.
I kept going. I filled the wheelbarrow, rolled it over to the edge of the woods, and dumped it. I rolled it back and picked up the shovel again. While filling up the second load, I started to hit rocks. Some of them were big enough I had to shut everything down and spend the next few minutes working around it, until I finally got enough leverage to pry the damned thing free. My hands were starting to hurt already. My back, too. I was pretty sure I hadn’t even been digging for half an hour yet.
The sun was punishing me. I put down the shovel, took the plastic water jug over to the house, and turned on the faucet. The cold water felt good on my hands. I knelt down and splashed my face with it. Then I filled the jug and took a long drink. When I turned off the faucet, I could hear Mr. Marsh from inside the house. He was yelling at someone. I didn’t hear anybody respond, so I figured he must be yelling into the phone. I couldn’t make out the words. Only the anger.
Probably wouldn’t be a great idea to have him come out right now, I thought, see me sitting here by the house. I took the jug back with me and started digging again. I could see that I was barely making a dent in the ground. This would have to be something not to think about. At all. Just turn off your brain, I told myself, and keep digging.