But what could Rooster do? Try to talk him out of it one more time? Every bit of resistance only seemed to harden the boy’s resolve.
Is that what this was about for Bennie? Showing everyone? Showing them all, including Bennie’s father?
Advice was useless now. His nephew was beyond advice, beyond Rooster.
Rooster opened the door of his booth. “Okay,” he said, stepping out. “Good luck.”
Bennie grabbed his arm. “What about my pitch? You think he’ll say yes?”
Rooster stopped. He couldn’t bring himself to look at his nephew’s face, full of dumb hope. He looked at Bennie’s shoes instead. Square-toed loafers—those were new.
“Yeah,” said Rooster to the shoes. “Yeah, I’m afraid he will.”
* * *
For a long time, Kate’s parents didn’t hear from Bennie. Not one letter, not one call.
“He’ll be back,” insisted Kate whenever they called her in Dayton. She claimed to be having a wretched time in her “personal Tower of London,” but every time they called in the evening they could hear the TV murmuring in the background and her spoon clanking around a dessert dish. “You’ll see,” she said through a mouthful of butter pecan ice cream or lemon meringue pie or apple cobbler. “The day of the deadline, he’ll be back.”
“In that case,” said the old man to his wife, “I should have given him sixty years to make good. He would have been out of our hair forever.”
Then came the day of the deadline. Bennie did not show up, but he did call to request an extension of three months, which the old man granted. “I’m sorry,” the old man told his daughter, who received the news in silence. Even her spoon stopped clanking.
The old man wasn’t sorry, of course. His wife’s plan to give the boy plenty of slack was working. With a little luck, they would never hear from him again.
On the other end of the line, his daughter started to cry. The old man held the receiver away from his ear so he could watch the end of Love Boat. Rocking in his easy chair, he thought he could detect, under the strains of her mechanical weeping, the echo of Love Boat on her end of the line. He didn’t say anything about it, though, and neither did she. They just stayed on the line until the end of the episode, him rocking, her crying, watching everything on the screen come together, together.
* * *
The night before the opening of the Tip Top Lounge, there were three people in the restaurant: Bennie, his head chef, and Veedy. They sat in the back room, the room Bennie intended as a kind of tribute, a room reserved for Veedy and his guests. After tucking into the veal piccata, Veedy sent the chef home. “You know what sounds good?” he said. “Martinis.”
Bennie started to get up, but Veedy put a soft hand on his shoulder, so he sank back down and let Veedy go behind the bar to mix the drinks.
The lounge had come together quickly. Within days of his pitch, Bennie had a deed to a former department store on Light Street, and a demolition crew was on site. He guessed that a good deal of money from those suitcases had gotten processed through the pockets of city clerks and foremen, but he didn’t ask and Veedy didn’t tell. All Bennie really knew was that Veedy had committed himself to the project, and that made Bennie nervous. What was Veedy going to ask in return?
The big man padded back to their table with a tall glass pitcher and a pair of up glasses. “The hunter returns.” He poured a cloudy glass, then lifted an eyebrow at Bennie. “Dry and dirty,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” said Bennie, who had never had a martini, but would order them this way for the rest of his life.
“My accountant will be here at six in the morning,” said Veedy. “He’ll teach you how to work the money into your books. The morning after that—every morning after that—a delivery truck will come by with a pallet of dry goods with a suitcase or two in the middle. From then on, the driver will be your only contact. Understand?”
Bennie nodded, smoothing his palms on his thighs. He wasn’t used to wool trousers. The silk lining felt wet against his legs.
“Your job is easy,” said Veedy, pouring a glass for himself. “All you need to do is look legitimate. I’m going to help that effort by never coming here again. Don’t get sloppy, don’t be greedy, don’t get curious. It’s smart to be a little dumb.”
Bennie nodded again. Veedy took a nip of the murky gin, then stood and buttoned his double-breasted coat. “You’ve got everything you want now?”
Bennie stopped nodding. He tried to picture Kate, but just then he couldn’t see her face. Were her eyes green or hazel? All he could see was Rooster, leaning his hammy forearms on the lip of the booth, holding out a ticket. It’s not too late. He was right, even now; Bennie could still push his chair back and say, “Actually, you know what? I’m not the right guy.”
Veedy would be surprised, but it would be easy for him to plug in another useful idiot before the opening. Easy for Kate and her parents to follow through with the adoption plans. Easy for Bennie to haul his accordion case down to the bus station, tell Rooster to print up that ticket to Ensenada. They would understand, all of them. They might even be relieved.
Except for Bennie. He could travel to the other side of the world and never escape this decision. He could sit under a palm tree for a hundred years and never forgive himself.
Bennie cleared his throat. “I do.”
Veedy raised his glass in a kind of toast. “Don’t forget that,” he said, and wolfed down his drink.
* * *
A wet November evening, the second deadline. An Eldorado the color of rich cream pulled up to the old man’s row house and honked twice. A young man stepped out of the car and buttoned his overcoat slowly. It took the old man a few seconds to recognize Bennie through the window; this was not the boy who had wallowed on their stoop six months earlier.
The old man chuckled. Well. This wasn’t a bad outcome, either.
His wife was not nearly as impressed when she came to the door. “What is this?” she called into the street.
“Prospects,” said the young man, walking around the long front of the car.
The old woman twisted a dishrag in her hands. “Bennie, what did you do?”
“Questions weren’t part of the deal.” He smiled. “And, please, call me Ben.”
The old man waved him inside. “We’ll hash this out at the table. You can tell us about your prospects, and if everything checks out, we can call Kate on the phone and—”
“No need,” said Ben, opening the passenger door. There was their daughter in a billowing empire-waist dress. Getting to her feet was a struggle, even with Ben’s help, and her puffy ankles were bulging around the straps of her heels, but she wore a look of chilly triumph. “Mother,” she said. “Father.”
“Outflanked,” whispered the old man. That was the last word he said all evening.
“What did you do?” the old woman said again, and this time the question seemed directed not only at Ben, but at her daughter, herself, God. She told Kate to get in the house;