The Way It Works (4 page)

I know Scooby isn't a drunk or a drug addict. He really will spend the money on food. So I reach into my pocket to peel off a few small bills. But then I remember I've changed my pants. My money isn't in my jeans. It's with my suit. How could I have forgotten that?

“Scooby, I'll be right back,” I say.

I run to the dry cleaner's. The lady who owns it happens to be Chinese too. Her name is Mrs. Wong. She listens to my story. Then she tells me she didn't see my money. I can tell she's being honest. Sometimes you just know about people. She lets me search through my pants. She even lets me look around the floor of her shop.

Nothing.

My money is gone.

Okay, Walter, think. Think hard. Where
did you last see the money?

I remember. Last night, as I was falling asleep, I felt it in my pocket. I had it then. So it must have fallen out in the car.

Which is now at the impound lot.

I debate calling the lot to ask them to look for it. But that has to be the stupidest idea I've ever had. Of course they'll find it. Then they'll keep it.

Because that's the way it works.

How can I even pay for my suit? Mrs. Wong is waiting to see what I'm going to do. She reminds me of Yolanda's mom. I wonder if I can get lucky twice in a row. What do I have to lose?

I bow deeply. Then I say, “N
h
o ma?”

Her face lights up, and she laughs.

“Where did you learn that?” she asks. “Black people don't speak Mandarin!”

You need to meet Yolanda
, I think.

But that's too complicated to explain right now. Instead, I tell Mrs. Wong about my job interview. I tell her what happened to my money. I beg her to let me pay her later. She nods. I've been in here before.

She knows me well enough.

“You can pay later, okay,” Mrs. Wong says. “I remember your face.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I say.

Mrs. Wong smiles again.

“In Mandarin, we say ‘Xiè xiè,'” she says. It sounds like
sheh sheh
.

“Xiè xiè,” I say, and I bow again. That information might come in handy. It would sure impress Yolanda's mom.

My suit is ready. I put it on in the washroom at the bus station. It looks great. Mrs. Wong even got the dirt out of the knees.

Then I head for Capital Investments. It's almost three o'clock. I'm so worried about my money I feel like I'm going to throw up. But I can't show that now. I need to put my game face on.

Finally, I have a real job interview.

It's time to show the world who Walter Davis really is.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

“N
ow that is the sharpest suit I have seen in a while.”

The man who's speaking is just a few years older than me. He sits in a black leather office chair. He's blond, trim, with ice-blue eyes. He stares at me for a full five seconds. Like he's waiting for me to crack. I look back at him. Maybe he thinks he can make me nervous. And to tell the truth, I'm terrified. But I'm not going to show it.

“Thanks,” I say. “I like yours too.”

He smiles. Then he holds out his hand.

“Jon Watts. You can call me Jonny.”

“Walter Davis.” We shake.

“So, you want to work for Capital. What do you bring to the table?”

“I'll be straight with you,” I say. “I don't have a fancy education. What I do have is brains and talent. And I can work harder than anyone. If you give me a chance, I won't let you down.”

Jonny nods. Then he smiles.

“Let's take a walk,” he says.

We go down a hallway lined with office doors. Then we come to a big room with lots of desks in it. On every desk is a phone. And on every phone, someone is talking a mile a minute. They're mostly men around my age. A few women. A few older guys.

“This is the boiler room,” says Jonny. He steers me to an empty desk. Then he pushes a phone at me. “This is yours,” he says. He hands me a couple of papers. “This is your script. Here's a list of numbers. You want people to invest with our company. Tell them anything you want. I don't care. Just get their money. Once they say yes, pass them on to a supervisor. We'll get their personal information. All you have to do is sell. You follow me?”

I nod. Seems simple enough.

“All right,” says Jonny. “Go ahead and dial that first number.”

I dial. An old lady answers.

“This is Walter with Capital Investments,”

I say, reading from the script. But the words run together in my head. I can't think. I toss the script aside and speak from the heart.

“Can I talk to you about your future?”

“Well, I suppose so,” says the old lady on the other end.

I don't even remember what happens next. We talk for about five minutes. At the end of it I've promised her 30 percent returns in the next year. And she's agreed to invest ten thousand dollars with Capital Investments.

I hang up the phone. Jonny's eyes are huge. He starts to clap.

“Let's hear it for Walter!” he shouts. “On the job five minutes, and already he brings in ten large! Give it up, boys!”

The room breaks into applause. Guys I don't know are standing up, yelling my name. It's all pretty overwhelming. Jonny holds my hand up like I've just won a fight.

“Walter,” says Jonny, “you just got yourself a job.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you. Thank you.”

I'm still saying thank you in my head an hour later, as I'm walking out of town. I'm headed for the impound lot, where my car is. If I can talk an old lady into investing ten thousand of her hard-earned dollars, I can talk some yahoo into letting me look inside my own car for five minutes.

Which I do.

I tear the car upside down. But the money isn't there.

“Did you go through my car?” I ask the guy behind the counter. He's not the guy who towed me. He's even greasier and hairier.
Must be the owner
, I think.

“We don't go in the cars, man,” he says.

“What do you think I am, a thief ?”

“You stole my dang car, didn't you?”

I say.

“The law is the law, my friend,” he says.

“That's the way—”

“I know, don't tell me,” I say. “That's the way it works.”

I've got nothing else to do, so I head for the part of town where I got towed. I know it's a long shot, but I have to check. It takes me an hour to walk there. I scan the ground for a wad of cash.

Yeah, right. Like someone is going to leave something like that just laying there. If this is where I dropped it, it's long gone.

No use crying over spilled milk. I console myself by pretending a widow found my money. A widow with nine starving children. She needed the money worse than I did. That's why this happened. It helps me feel a little better. But not much.

I head back to the city. My watch tells me it's going on six o'clock. The shelter opens at eight. I have two hours to kill. I walk slow, taking my time. It's a nice night. The whole way, I think about Yolanda. How she looked last night, and how she smelled. How close I came to kissing her. If not for her dad in the doorway, that is.

That's all right. If I had a daughter, I'd be protective too. I kind of like old Parnell. You have to respect someone who protects the people he loves.

I go to the bus station and change into jeans and a T-shirt. I put my suit away as carefully as possible. Then I go to the shelter to get in line. It's easy to get a bed on warm nights like this. It's harder in the middle of winter, when not getting a space means you could die.

The shelter is hard to sleep in. The blankets and pillows smell terrible. There's always someone raising a fuss. Crying, yelling, coughing, shouting. Always something. You learn to tune it out after a while.

Besides, I have tomorrow to look forward to. My first day on the job.

I won't be homeless much longer.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

I
'm up bright and early for my first day at work. To tell the truth, I didn't sleep a wink. I was too nervous and excited. And the shelter is just too loud. But being tired is nothing. I'd swim through a river of razor blades for a shot at a job. And now I've got one. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is going to slow me down.

I'm at the bus station just after sunrise.

I get out my suit and put it on. It's a little wrinkled, but I've already made my first impression. And it was a good one. Today is not about appearances. It's about results. Can I do better today than I did yesterday? Of course I can. I have to. That's the key to success.

I eat a breakfast burrito at my regular place. Then I start heading for the office. My office. My job. It feels so good to think that, I say it out loud. I don't care who hears me talking to myself. I have a job.

“You hear that, Moms?” I whisper.

“I'm gonna make you proud.”

I'm coming up on the block where Capital's offices are. Something seems to be going on today. There's a big crowd of people standing outside the building. Probably shooting a movie, I think. They do that a lot in this city.

I push my way through the crowd up to the front. But I don't see any movie cameras. All I see are a couple of cops standing guard at the front door. I've never been in trouble with the law, but I do know that cops never mean good news. Something bad is going down.

I nudge the guy next to me.

“Hey, what's going on?” I ask.

He looks at me. “Haven't you heard?”

“I haven't heard anything. What's up?”

“You work here?” he says.

“I work at Capital. Today's my first day.”

“Well, I'm sorry to tell you this, buddy,” says the guy. “But your first day is also going to be your last.”

I feel like the ground is falling away from me. I'm in shock. I stagger, then catch myself.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Two words, pal,” says the guy. “
Ponzi
scheme
.”

Ponzi scheme?
You have to be kidding
me
, I think. This is just what Scooby was talking about. People taking other people's money. Pretending they'll get great returns. But really, all they get is robbed.

What else did Scooby say? If something sounds too good to be true…then it probably is.

Suddenly it hits me. I robbed an old lady yesterday.

“Here they come!” someone else yells.

At that moment, the front door opens. There are a lot of cops, and a lot of guys in suits. One thing I notice right away is that the guys in suits are in handcuffs. Some of them are trying to hide their faces.

Then I recognize Jonny Watts. He's got handcuffs on too. His cocky attitude is gone. He looks like he wants to cry.

I know how he feels.

“You got to be kidding me,” I say.

“Sorry, bro,” says the guy I was talking to. “Heck of a way to start your first day.”

The guys in suits are being loaded into cop cars. But I can't watch anymore. I find a bench and sit down.

Scooby was right. Cor ruption is everywhere.

Who was I kidding? I thought I could make it in the world of high finance. But the only firm that would give me a chance turned out to be crooked.

I put my head in my hands. I don't belong in this city. I need to leave. Ever since Moms and I came here, I've had nothing but trouble. Little by little, everything has been taken away. I've lost it all. Home, car, money. Even my own mother was taken from me. And now I've lost the one thing I managed to hang on to all this time—hope.

That's it. I'm done. I'm out of here. I don't know where I'm going, but anywhere is better than here. I'll pawn my suit. I'll get my car back. I'll fill the tank with gas. And then I'll leave.

Suddenly I feel like a huge weight has come off my shoulders. I know this is the right thing to do.

I go back to the bus station for the last time. I put on my old clothes again. I fold up my suit. Then I go to the pawnbroker's place, just a few blocks away. I know Moms spent over four grand on the clothes and the briefcase. After a long argument, I get four hundred bucks for it all, plus a pawn ticket.