about me, Champ. I’ve forgotten more about driving than you’ll ever learn.”
“Your nose is bleeding again,” I said.
She wiped it with the heel of her palm, then wiped it on her sweatshirt. Not for the first time, by the look of it. “Septum’s gone,” she said. “I’m going to fix it. Once I’m clean.”
After that we were quiet for awhile.
56
After we got on the Thruway, Liz helped herself to another bump of her special blend. I’d say she was starting to scare me, but we were well past that point.
“Do you want to know how we got here? Me and you, Holmes and Watson off on another adventure?”
Adventure wasn’t the word I would have picked, but I didn’t say so.
“I can see by your face that you don’t. That’s okay. Long story, not very interesting, but I’ll tell you this much—no kid ever said they wanted to grow up to be a bum, a college dean, or a dirty cop. Or to pick up garbage in Westchester county, which is what my brother-in-law does these days.”
She laughed, although I didn’t know then what was funny about being a garbageman.
“Here’s something that might interest you. I’ve moved a lot of dope from Point A to Point B and got paid for it, but the blow your mother found in my coat pocket that time was a freebie for a friend. Ironic, when you think about it. By then IAD already had their eye on me. They weren’t sure, but they were getting there. I was scared to death that Tee would spill the beans. That would have been the time to get out, but by then I couldn’t.” She paused, considering this. “Or wouldn’t. Looking back it’s hard to tell which. But it makes me think of something Chet Atkins said once. You ever heard of Chet Atkins?”
I shook my head.
“How soon the great are forgotten. Google him when you get back. Excellent guitarist, up there with Clapton and Knopfler. He was talking about how shitty he was at tuning his instrument. ‘By the time I realized I was no good at this part of the job, I was too rich to quit.’ Same with me and my career as a transporter. Tell you one other thing, since we’re just passing the time on the good old New York Thruway. You think your mother was the only one who got hurt when the economy went tits-up in ’08? Not true. I had a stock portfolio—teeny-weenie, but it was mine—and that went poof.”
She passed another double box, being careful to use her blinker before swinging out and then tucking back in. Considering how much dope she’d ingested, I was amazed. Also grateful. I didn’t want to be with her, but even more than that I didn’t want to die with her.
“But the main thing was my sister Bess. She married this guy who worked for one of the big investment companies. Probably haven’t heard of Bear Stearns any more than you’ve heard of Chet Atkins, right?”
I didn’t know whether to nod my head or shake it, so I just sat there.
“Danny—my brother-in-law, now majoring in waste management—was just entry-level at Bear when Bess married him, but he had a clear path forward. Future was so bright he had to wear shades, if I may borrow from an old song. They bought a house in Tuckahoe Village. Hefty mortgage, but everyone assured them—me included, damn my eyes—that property values out that way had nowhere to go but up. Like the stock market. They got an au pair for their kid. They got a junior membership in the country club. Were they overextended? Fuck, yes. Was Bessie able to look down on my paltry seventy grand a year? Ten-four. But you know what my father used to say?”
How would I? I thought.
“He used to say that if you try to outrun your own shadow, you’re bound to fall on your face. Danny and Bess were talking about putting in a swimming pool when the bottom fell out. Bear Stearns specialized in mortgage securities, and all at once the paper they were holding was just paper.”
She brooded on this as we passed a sign that said NEW PALTZ 59 POUGHKEEPSIE 70 and RENFIELD 78. We were a little over an hour away from our final destination, and just thinking that gave me the creeps, Final Destination being a particularly gory horror movie me and my friends had watched. Not up there with the Saw flicks,