Vince took a sip of coffee and smiled. “He won’t stop until he has all the answers. No stone unturned!” He raised his fist in mock jubilation. “For one, you’ll be engaging in the same activities as me. You implicate me, you implicate yourself. Two, I’ll just say it’s easier to control the things that are under your umbrella. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

I didn’t understand the last statement, totally, which was his intention. A vague threat is an effective threat.

“So,” he said, “this is the situation in which we find ourselves. Unfortunate, certainly not ideal for either party, but necessary for the time being. We’ll continue on as we have been, for the immediate future.”

“And then what? How long is the immediate future? How long does this have to go on?”

He shrugged. “Until you and I repair the trust between us. And once that happens, we’ll decide how to proceed.”

Repair the trust. Right.

“In the meantime,” he said, “I’d like to move things forward on the right foot. No more secrets. And please, let me take you to dinner. The two of us, and our women.”

And our women. As soon as he said it, the sweat came back.

“Sounds nice,” I said, “but I’m not sure. Suzanne’s not exactly my woman.”

He waved his hand. “Understood. Labels aren’t important. But knowing Suzanne, I’m sure she’d enjoy a private table at the Otter Ridge Steak Room.”

“She’s not too happy with me right now.”

Vince leaned forward, smirked, and motioned toward the living room. “She’s happy with me about once a season.”

We both shared a laugh, and in that moment, if only briefly, we were nothing but buds. A couple of guys, talking women troubles, relating to one another. It was fleeting, but it was real. And it was dangerous.

As we chuckled, Vince began showing me out.

“I’ll make a reservation,” he said. “Tomorrow night. The women will love it.”

He patted me on the back, and I felt myself slipping into his warm, comfortable incubator. I felt it, engrossing my body like a shot of morphine. I could give in. I could play the game. I could be one of the guys. And one day, before long, I could be his apprentice, or better. It could be easy; I could just keep making runs, working a handful of hours a week and making good money, and spending the rest of the time doing whatever the fuck I wanted. It could be easy. I could just keep doing it, keep playing the game, keep not saying anything, until the money grew and so did my influence. I could be him. I could have her. It could be easy.

It flowed through my veins and warmed me, all in seconds. I understood. I understood everything he wanted me to understand, and nothing more. I was smart and strong but so was he, and so were wealth and power. They were slick bastards, and they’d taken better men than me.

He walked me to the door of his office, and the pull came back. It came suddenly, just like that morning in New York when Ray Lamontagne sung on the radio. It arrested my thoughts, my feelings, instantly, and put an end to the warm embrace of wealth and power. It was like methadone to the heroin he injected into me.

It told me to fight, while I still could.

“You know,” I said, stopping in my tracks and turning toward him, “I could just do it anyway. I could just go to the police.” My voice was low and my eyes were narrow, and we stood in the doorway to the hall. I needed to show strength. The tone in the room turned easily.

He didn’t look concerned, at least not right away.

“You could,” he said. “And tell them what?”

“Everything. Show up at the station and tell them what happened. Tell them you set me up. Make it my word against yours.”

“And who,” he asked, “do you expect them to believe? A New Yorker they’ve never met? Or a man they’ve worked with for a decade?”

I shrugged. He was right, but I couldn’t show it. “Stranger things have happened.”

He stepped toward me and grabbed the front of my shirt, the first time he’d put his hands on me. His eyes stared into mine and his voice lowered, almost to a whisper.

“You’d be dead before you reached the station.”

He let go and I exhaled. We stared each other down.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said. “I’m offering you a generous compromise, one you’d be wise to take. The last thing you want to do in these mountains is fuck with me.”

He patted my back again and led me through the doorway.

“Tomorrow night, eight o’clock,” he said. “I’ll see you both there.”

38

The Otter Ridge Steak Room was an opulent affair; a cozy log building the size of a home, nestled into the side of the mountains. The main dining room held no more than a dozen tables. Our table was in a small private room at the far side of the building, filled with lit candles and smells of pine and basil. The lighting was dim, the mood intimate. Our table sat beside a large window displaying a view of downtown Otter Ridge below. The lights of Main Street burned bright in the cool autumn night.

The ambiance was welcoming; the mood at the table was not.

By the time I convinced Suzanne to join me for dinner, she had calmed to a point that was manageable. I thought she would be fine in front of Vince and Adeline. I was wrong.

“Come with me tonight,” I’d pleaded to her, holding her hand between mine in her apartment living room. “Please. I need you.”

“You’ve made it quite clear that you don’t,” she said, yanking her hand away.

“We can talk about it after. I promise. We’ll talk about everything.”

She said nothing.

“It’s a free dinner and cocktails at this nice restaurant. Would it be so bad?”

“Depends on the company.”

“Vince and Adeline are your friends. They were your friends before they were my friends. You like them.”

“Perhaps I don’t like you,” she said, and shrugged.

The conversation continued like this for twenty minutes until she finally softened and agreed to go. We would dress up, eat dinner, and have a nice time, and afterward we would talk things through. I really did need her.

On the drive to dinner, me in a sport coat and her in a red dress and doused in perfume, the trouble began. I will never understand how this happened, or why. But she somehow got the notion I’d slept with another woman, despite the fact that there were virtually no signs. It’s as if she smelled it on me.

“You’re different,” she said, glaring.

“In what way?” I asked. I’d never been particularly good at lying.

“You’re full of shit.”

And it continued like that, until she accused me of cheating on her. There was the fact that she and I had never verbally defined any sort of relationship, and therefore cheating was impossible, but I didn’t dare bring it up. When we pulled up to the restaurant, she was resting her head on her hand, which was resting on the passenger side window.

“You’re unbelievable,” she said. “Damn unbelievable.”

“We’ve established there’s zero basis for what you’re accusing me of,” I said.

“There doesn’t need to be. You ooze infidelity.”

I put the car in park in the small, secluded lot, and looked at her.

“Could you just be cool?” I asked. “You sound insane.”

She shook her head. “You would think of it that way.”

I sighed. “You have no idea how insane you sound.”

“Fuck off.”

“Listen!” I yelled. “Could we just table this shit? Could you just relax for an hour? Would you mind putting off your delusions and accusations for that long, and just have dinner with your friends?”

She shook her head and said nothing.

“Hey, you haven’t heard from Damon, have you?” I asked.

She scoffed and opened the car door. I followed her inside.