Parker 04 - The Fury (26 page)

a booth. A waitress came by and dropped two menus

on the table with a
thunk.
One good thing about New

York coffee shops, they took the food from every menu

in the city and crammed it under one roof. You could

order anything from a BLT to baby back ribs to sushi.

Though I wouldn't recommend coffee-shop sushi.

Scotty slid into the far end of the booth. He looked

tired, and I could imagine that this was literally the

very last place on earth he wanted to be. After a long

day delivering house to house, I was sure a cold beer

and a warm bed were the next two items on his agenda.

They'd have to wait a little while.

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217

"You're making a big mistake," Scotty said. "I don't

know anything."

"See right there," I said, pointing at him. "That's

how I know you're lying. Anyone who says 'you're

making a big mistake' knows a whole hell of a lot."

"Great, so you're a mind reader. Read my palm and

let me the hell out of here."

"You stand up before I say you can, and you know

what the front page of the paper says tomorrow?" I

held up my hands as though spelling out a movie

matinee for him. "It says, 'Scott Callahan, drug

dealer.' Now, I don't know what your dreams and am

bitions are, Scotty, but I'm going to guess you'll have

a tough time finding gainful employment after that

happens. So we're going to sit here, I'm going to have

a big-ass chocolate milk shake, and we're going to

talk. Then, maybe, if I feel like you've been honest,

you can go."

"And if not?"

I held up my hands again, framing the marquee.

"Then consider yourself Spitzered."

"You're a classy guy."

"Yeah, and how's the drug-dealing business going?"

"I'm not a drug dealer," Scotty said. The anger in his

voice told me he actually believe what he said.

"Now, I'm not sure what the actual term 'drug

dealer' is in Webster's, but I'm pretty sure that if you

go door to door selling drugs, you'd find a picture of

yourself next to that definition."

The thing was, I had no proof of Scotty being a

dealer. I could link him to 718 Enterprises, and Hector

Guardado, and possibly even my brother, but I hadn't

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actually witnessed him doing it. Thankfully by denying

it with such vehemence he proved it for me.

"I'm not a dealer," he said. His voice was quieter this

time. I wondered if Scotty had ever sat alone in the dark

thinking about what he was doing, what he'd become.

The softness in his tone told me he had. "That's not what

I do."

"Then, please," I said. "Enlighten me."

He looked at me suspiciously, his eyes traveling over

my shirt, my chest. Then he leaned over and peered

under the table.

"Can I help you?" I said.

"Are you wired?"

I shook my head. "I'm not. This is between you and

me, for now. I'm not looking to bust you. That's the

truth. I just want some answers and I know you have

them. You help me, I help you."

"How do you help me?" he said.

"By keeping my mouth shut."

"And how can I know I can trust you?" he asked. "I

have a family, man. I have friends. They all think I'm

living on a sweet severance package."

I sat for a moment. "You know what guys usually say

in the movies when someone asks how they know they

can trust them?"

"No."

"They say, 'because you have no choice.' So right

now, you have no choice but to trust me. I'd be happy

to strip down to my George Foreman underwear, but I

don't think that's a scene either of us needs."

Just to show him I was on the up-and-up, I stood up,

flattened out my jeans and did a quick flip-up of my top.

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219

Sitting back down, I could tell Scotty was far from sat

isfied, but he also knew if motivated, I could cause him

a world of trouble.

"They're not my drugs," he said. "I never wanted to

do it. I mean, you're a reporter, right?"

"That's what my business card says."

"So you've got a job. And even though everyone's

saying newspapers are going in the tank, you're still

getting paid, right?"

I wondered where this was going, but nodded.

"I had my life planned out. I was gonna have my

MBA by twenty-six," Scotty said. "So much for that.

Three-point-nines all the way through college. Paid my

own way through school because my parents could

barely afford to buy the clothes I took with me. And

right before I graduated, I got a six-figure job with

Deutsche Bank structuring CDOs. That's the American

dream, right"

"CDOs?" I said.

"Collateralized debt obligations. Basically you have

a lot of banks giving out hundreds of thousands of loans.

These loans are packaged into what's called a security.

Then a bunch of securities are piled into what's called

a CDO. Then when the crisis hit, we all got screwed."

"Still not quite sure I follow."

"Think about it like you were selling eggs," Scotty

said. "There are dozens of chickens laying hundreds of

eggs. Those eggs are taken from all different chickens

and put into one carton, which is then sold. But what

happens if the whole coop was diseased? Every egg in

the carton is basically worthless. That's pretty much

what happened. We ended up with a bunch of packaged

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loans that were in essence worthless. And once the

economy got turned upside down, everyone who

worked in that branch got the ticket out of there. I was

at Deutsche Bank less than a year when I got canned."

"I'm guessing you didn't live with your parents

while you were working."

"No way. Bought me a sweet two-bedroom for threequarters of a mil. Between salary and bonus, I could

afford the payments while paying off my student loans.

But then I lost my job, couldn't make the payments, and

took a hundred-thousand-dollar loss selling the apart

ment."

"Wow," I said. "I think you lost more on that pad than

my apartment is worth."

"Don't be too sure. There's always someone willing

to overpay for Manhattan real estate. If I could have

waited six months I would have found a good buyer, but

I couldn't afford my mortgage anymore and it was

either that or live on the street for a while."

"And now?"

"And now what? I live with my parents. They still

think I'm gonna be some financial genius. Warren

Buffett or something. That's why you gotta keep this

quiet, man. They can't know. It'd kill them." Scotty was

starting to breathe harder, red flaring up under his collar.

He was getting angry just talking about this. "You know

what that feels like? You work your ass off for ten years,

you pour every penny you have into your future. And

then just when things seem like they're going your way,

the rug is pulled out from under you and you're left with

nothing but debt, bad credit and a crappy old bedroom

that wasn't big enough when you were in high school."

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221

"So you start dealing. To make ends meet."

"It's not permanent," Scotty said. "Things will turn

around. There are peaks and valleys in every time cycle.

In a year or so I'll have the job of my choice, back in a

sweet-ass apartment. Living the dream."

"You tell that to all the people you're poisoning?"

"Screw yourself, Mr. High-and-Mighty. I'm doing

what I need to do to survive. I owe fifty grand on my

tuition, and even if I do get another job, who knows how

long that'll last. You're a reporter, right? You ever think

about all those people you feed bull to day in and day out?

All those magazines telling women how they can doll

themselves up, get sliced open just to be prettier? So

maybe they can look like whatever anorexic slut you

shove on your cover? Don't tell me about poison, man.

You think I'm any worse than you are, you're deluding

yourself."

"I don't need to defend myself. I know what I do, and

I know what you do. If you can even compare the two,

you're the delusional one, Scotty."

A waiter came over. He took a notepad from his

pocket, licked his thumb and turned to a fresh page.

"Can I get ya?"

"Pastrami and rye," Scotty said. "With Swiss and

mustard. And a cream soda."

"Chocolate milk shake," I said. "And a side of fries."

The waiter nodded, walked off. I turned back to

Scotty.

"When did you start?" I asked.

He sighed, for a moment saying nothing. He was

steeling himself up to talk. "'Bout a year ago," he said.

"How? Who introduced you?"

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"I went to my buddy Kyle's house one night a week

after I got laid off. It was a few of us. Kyle's girlfriend,

some chick I'd been seeing for a month who dumped

me a few days later when she realized I couldn't afford

tables at the China Club anymore."

"Wow, that's a sob story if I ever heard one. Let me

call up Larry King for you."

"Dude, you're missing the point. Do you have any

idea what it's like, how utterly fucking hopeless you

feel, to live your whole life working for something only

to know it can end--" he snapped his fingers "--just

like that?"

Scotty sat there, leaning across the table like a life

coach trying to convince me of the path to righteous

ness. Though Scotty and I had almost nothing in

common--not our clothes, not our upbringing, not our

vocation--something about what he said hit home for

me. With my industry seemingly scaling back by the

day, not to mention the far too often times my life was

endangered by that chosen vocation, I knew how

tenuous things could be.

"Your friend Kyle," I said. "Go on."

"We stayed up late, drank a lot. I think our girls were

starting to get pissed off, feeling like we were paying

each other more attention than we were them. And they

were probably right. At some point I start jonesing for

a toke. I used in college a bit. I asked Kyle if he knew

where we could get some good stuff, and he kind of

looked at me and laughed."

Our food came, and Scotty tore into it before mine

had even been set down. The pastrami and rye disap

peared in several ravenous bites, washed down with a

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223

chug of cream soda. When he finished, Scotty smiled

and said, "Best sandwich in the world."

My chocolate milk shake looked a little silly in com

parison, but I took a long sip and felt like a kid again.

He wiped his mouth, placed the napkin gently on the

table and continued. "Kyle just got up, went into his

bedroom and came back with what looked like an eighth

of great bud. At first I didn't ask questions, I was just

looking forward to the feeling. When we were good and

baked--and man, that stuff baked us
quick
--I asked

him where he'd got it. Know what he told me?"

"What?"

"He said, 'leftovers.' I didn't know what the hell that

meant, so I asked him. He said times were tough, and

he'd been dealing a bit on the side. His mom just got

diagnosed with cervical cancer and she didn't have

health insurance. So he was dealing to help her out with

the bills. Kyle's dad died about ten years ago, drank

away every penny they had, even gambled some that

they didn't. So I asked him who set him up with that,

and he said he'd met a guy who was kind of like the

head recruiter. Kind of like Ben Affleck in
Boiler Room,

the grand pooh-bah of the game. The guy you want to

talk to if you want in."

"So Kyle set you up with this guy."

"Yeah. Kyle said he was at some party where a guy

named Vinnie came and sold the host some coke. Kyle

was curious about making some extra coin, so he pulled

Vinnie aside. Vinnie gave him a phone number, and

that's all she wrote."

"And how did you get involved?" I asked.

Scotty chugged more of his cream soda, a frothy

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mustache trail on his upper lip. He saw me staring, and

wiped it away. "After a few weeks, I noticed Kyle was

coming home later and later, and then I saw him with

this sweet watch, a Movado. Brand-new, bought from

the store. He said he was pulling down two, three grand

a week easy. And that was just the beginning. So I asked

if Kyle would introduce me to his man, this recruiter

guy. Kyle tells me this guy is the one who makes all the

decisions, the guy who's in charge of
everything.
Kyle

sets up a meeting, I go in and talk with this guy for an

hour, maybe two, and a week later I'm on the street."

"But not really 'on the street.'"

"Nah. Anyone who thinks dealers in NYC sit on

street corners waiting for crackheads to come up to