“Does he have a cell phone?”
“Sir, I’m not sure you understand…”
“Actually, I understand just fine. Now what’s your name, so I can tell Mr. Drew who I was talking to?”
Again, a pause. “Please hold.”
We’re down to a minute and ten seconds. I know the bank is synchronized with the Fed, but you can only cut these things so close.
“What’re you gonna do?” Charlie asks.
“We’ll make it,” I tell him.
Fifty seconds.
My eyes are glued to the digital button marked Send. At the top of the screen, I’ve already scrolled past the line that reads “$40,000,000.00,” but right now, that’s all I see. I put the phone on Speaker to free my hands. On my shoulder, I feel the grip of Charlie’s fist tighten.
Thirty seconds.
“Where the hell is this woman?”
My hand’s shaking so hard against the mouse, it’s moving the cursor onscreen. We don’t have a chance.
“This is it,” Charlie says. “Time to make a decision.”
He’s right about that one. The problem is… I… I just can’t. Searching for help, I look over my shoulder, back to my brother. He doesn’t say a word, but I hear it all. He knows where we’re from. He knows I’ve spent four years killing myself here. For all of us, this job is our way out of the emergency room. With twenty seconds to go, he nods his head ever so slightly.
That’s all I need – just a nudge to eat the dandelions. I turn back to the monitor. Push the button, I tell myself. But just as I go to do it, my whole body freezes. My stomach craters and the world starts to blur.
“C’mon!” Charlie shouts.
The words echo, but they’re lost. We’re in final seconds.
“Oliver, push the damn button!”
He says something else, but all I feel is the sharp yank on the back of my shirt. Pulling me out of the way, Charlie leans forward. I watch his hand come thundering down, pounding the mouse with a tight fist. On screen, the Send icon blinks into a negative of itself, then back again. A rectangular box appears three seconds later:
Status: Pending.
“Does that mean we-?”
Status: Approved.
Charlie now realizes what we’re looking at. So do I.
Status: Paid.
That’s it. All sent. The forty-million-dollar e-mail.
We both look at the speakerphone, waiting for a response. All we get is a cruel silence. My mouth hangs open. Charlie finally lets go of my shirt. Our chests rise and fall at the same pace… but for entirely different reasons. Fight and flight. I turn to my brother… my younger brother… but he won’t say a word. And then, there’s a crackle from the phone. A voice.
“Caruso,” Tanner Drew growls in a Southern accent that’s now as unmistakable as a fork in the eye, “if this isn’t a confirmation call, you better start praying to heaven above.”
“I-It is, sir,” I say, fighting back a grin. “Just a confirmation.”
“Fine. Goodbye.” With a slam, it’s over.
I turn around, but it’s too late. My brother’s already gone.
Racing out of The Cage, I scan for Charlie – but as always, he’s too fast. At his cubicle, I grab on to the top edges of his wall, boost myself up, and peek inside. With his feet up on his desk, he’s scribbling in a spiral green notebook, pen cap in mouth and lost in thought.
“So was Tanner happy?” he asks without turning around.
“Yeah, he was thrilled. All he could do was thank me – over and over and over. Finally, I was like, ‘No, you don’t have to include me in the Forbes profile – just having you make the top 400 is all the thanks I need.’”
“That’s great,” Charlie says, finally facing me. “I’m glad it worked out.”
I hate it when he does that. “Go ahead,” I beg. “Just say it.”
He drops his feet to the floor and tosses his notebook on his desk. It lands right next to the Play-Doh, which is only a few inches from his collection of green army men, which is right below the black-and-white bumper sticker on his computer monitor which reads, “I sell out to The Man every day!”
“Listen, I’m sorry for freezing like that,” I tell him.
“Don’t worry about it, bro – happens to everyone.”
God, to have that temperament. “So you’re not disappointed with me?”
“Disappointed? That was your puppy, not mine.”
“I know… it’s just… you’re always teasing me about getting soft…”
“Oh, you’re definitely soft – all this high living and elbow-rubbing – you’re a full-fledged baby’s bottom.”
“Charlie…!”
“But not a soft baby’s bottom – one of those completely hard ones – like a sumo baby or something.”
I can’t help but smile at the joke. It’s not nearly as good as the one three months ago, when he tried to talk in a pirate voice for an entire day (which he did), but it’ll do. “How about coming over tonight and letting me say thank you with some dinner?”
Charlie pauses, studying me. “Only if we don’t take a private car.”
“Will you stop? You know the bank would pay for it after everything we did tonight.”
He shakes his head disapprovingly. “You’ve changed, man – I don’t even know you anymore…”
“Fine, fine, forget the car. How about a cab?”
“How ’bout the subway?”
“I’ll pay for the cab.”
“A cab it is.”
Ten minutes later, after a quick stop in my office, we’re up on the seventh floor, waiting for the elevator. “Think they’ll give you a medal?”
“For what?” I ask. “For doing my job?”
“Doing your job? Aw, now you sound like one of those neighborhood heroes who pulled a dozen kittens out of a burning building. Face facts, Superman – you just saved this place from a forty-million-dollar nightmare – and not the good kind either.”
“Yeah, well, just do me a favor and tone down the advertising for a bit. Even if it was for a good reason, we were still stealing other people’s passwords to do it.”
“So?”
“So you know how they are with security around here-”
Before I can finish, the elevator pings and the doors slide open. At this hour, I expect it to be empty, but instead, a thick man with a football-player-sized chest is leaning against the back wall. Shep Graves – the bank’s VP of Security. Dressed in a shirt and tie that could’ve only been bought at the local Big & Tall, Shep knows how to hold his shoulders back so his late-thirties frame looks as young and strong as possible. For his job – protecting our thirteen billion – he has to. Even with the most state-of-the-art technology at his fingertips, there’s still no deterrent like fear – which is why, as we step into the elevator, I decide to end our discussion of Tanner Drew. Indeed, when it comes to Shep, except for some minor chitchat, no one in the bank really talks to him.
“Shep!” Charlie shouts as soon as he sees him. “How’s my favorite manhandler of misappropriation?” Shep puts his hand out and Charlie taps his fingers like they’re piano keys.
“You see what they got going at Madison?” Shep asks with a clumsy boxer’s grin. There’s a trace of a Brooklyn accent, but wherever he’s been, they trained it out of him. “They got a girl who wants to play boys varsity b-ball.”
“Good – that’s the way it should be. When do we see her play?” Charlie asks.
“There’s a scrimmage in two weeks…”
Charlie grins. “You drive; I’ll pay.”
“Scrimmages are free.”
“Fine, I’ll pay for you too,” Charlie says. Noticing my silence, he motions me into the elevator. “Shep, you ever meet my brother, Oliver?”
We both nod our cordial nods. “Nice to see you,” we say simultaneously.