Breaking the Bank (15 page)

Late in the day, the rain cleared and they took a walk up to a pizza place on Fifth Avenue. Pizza was cheap and generally something Eden would eat. Mia used one of the twenties from the secret stash to pay for a slice with broccoli and red peppers. To her amazement, Eden wanted the same thing and ate it all. Score one for Mom. Or for the magic money, which seemed to charm whatever it touched. The only dark note in the day came at bedtime, when Eden began talking about Lloyd in that longing yet manic way of hers.

“So you know that Daddy said he's going to take me to Asia with him next time, right? We're going to all these really cool places, like Japan, and Vietnam, and Korea,” she said. “He's going to buy me silver chopsticks. Maybe even gold. It's going to be great. No, not great. Amazing. It's going to be amazing.” She had Petunia tucked up under her chin as she spoke, and was squeezing her hard.

“He told you that?”

“The last time he was here.” She sounded defiant now. “He didn't mention it to me.”

“Well, he mentioned it to
me,
” said Eden. “He really and truly did.” She flopped back on the bed, Petunia flopping down obligingly alongside her. “So I can go, right? Even if I have to miss, like, a ton of school?”

“I'm not sure,” Mia hedged. “We'll have to discuss it.” She prepared herself for another round of begging and badgering. But it did not
come. Eden was uncharacteristically quiet, and in a few minutes Mia realized that she was asleep.

When her daughter's breathing had settled into an easy, somnolent rhythm, Mia was able to think about her appointment with Solly Phelps. How was she going to carry a ten-thousand-dollar bill, especially one whose condition seemed to be of the utmost importance? She rummaged around the apartment for a few minutes, managing to locate the pieces of cardboard that came with her new sheets (good thing her housekeeping was not
that
expert), a manila envelope, and a Hello Kitty backpack that just yesterday Eden informed her she no longer wanted. Mia trimmed the cardboard to fit the envelope, slipped the bill between the two pieces, slid the pieces into the envelope, and sealed the whole thing with a sponge—her mouth felt so dry she didn't have any spare saliva. The envelope then went inside a book and the book inside the backpack. If she looked ridiculous with Hello Kitty's bloated, wall-eyed face peering out from behind her, then so be it.

Although she knew that the money was not exactly hers, Mia had a hard time believing that keeping or using it was an actual crime. If the mistake had happened once or twice and had then been noticed by the bank, she would, of course, have given the money back, because someone was going to be held accountable; someone would have to pay. But this was on a completely different level, one that seemed to defy human error or even involvement. A ten-thousand-dollar bill, especially one that came with a light show, music, and a personal message, was so outside the realm of the ordinary as to be fantastical, magical, otherworldly. Who didn't notice that ten grand was missing? The only explanation that made sense to her was that it wasn't missing because it hadn't come from the bank at all.

Her father, resolute scientist that he had been, nevertheless had his less-than-scientific side. He believed, for instance, that his grandfather had appeared to him in a dream, and had given him his blessing the
night before he began his doctoral program in astronomy. Since his parents were visibly disappointed that their studious, A-garnering son had not elected to join the bright-Jewish-boy triumvirate of doctor/lawyer/ accountant, having his grandfather's approval had meant a lot to him. He also owned various lucky objects, though none so predictable as a four-leaf clover or a rabbit's foot. Mia remembered a flat white stone, almost perfectly circular in shape, and a black, crudely fashioned key that opened no door or lock she ever knew of. Then there was the brass gyroscope—still in its original, disintegrating cardboard box—he'd loved as a kid, along with his first penknife and a big blue marble that glowed with the intensity of a planet from a distant galaxy. Whether these objects possessed any actual magic power was immaterial. Mia and Stuart believed because their father believed—that was enough. On the day of a big exam, a tryout for a team, an audition for a play, the marble or the stone would be pressed into a moist palm. The gyroscope sat on Stuart's desk while he typed out his college applications; the key accompanied Mia on her first solo trip to Europe.

So it was conceivable—okay, not likely, not plausible, but in the end, not entirely impossible either—that she, Mia, had stumbled onto a mother lode of magic, right here in her very own backyard, so to speak. And if that were the case, then accepting the benefits that such magic might offer was not only not wrong, but was her right, her mandate even. Who was she to argue?

T
HE NEXT MORNING
was charmed. Eden woke early, dressed without serious incident (the yellow shorts worn over thick ribbed purple tights and topped by a frayed sweatshirt might have given some other mothers pause, but not Mia), and brushed her teeth without being asked. When they were on the way out of the apartment, Mr. Ortiz opened his door and asked Mia if he could speak to her. Mia couldn't help a glance at her watch, but Mr. Ortiz seemed to be bursting with barely containable news.

“I know you are in a rush, Señora Saul,” he said. Mariposa limped daintily into the hall, and Eden was happy to squat down to pet her. The dog was looking much better now: less thin, shinier fur. “But it's about Señor Manny.”

Manny? What trouble was he causing now? Mia's good feeling about the morning quickly began to evaporate, a puddle in an August sun.

“No, it's not bad,” he added, seeing her worried expression. “Señor Manny—he's gone away.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“The policemen came. Three of them. Just yesterday. There was a siren; it was so loud. Also Señor Manny was loud. He was yelling so much.” Mr. Ortiz shook his head at the memory. “So much. They put on the—how you say it?—wrist cuffs?” He gestured by placing his own knobby wrists together.

“Handcuffs,” supplied Eden, still stroking the dog but looking up with curiosity now.

“Yes, handcuffs. And he has not been back since.”

“Well, that's terrific,” Mia said. She didn't know how she managed to miss all this, but it was great news. She looked again at her watch. “I really want to hear more about this, Mr. Ortiz. But right now, we've got to hustle.” She turned to Eden. “Let's go, honey. You don't want to be late.”

“Of course, Señora Saul,” Mr. Ortiz said. “You can ring my bell any time.” He made a clucking noise at Mariposa, whose pointy ears rose like twin peaks on her dark head. She trotted into the apartment, and he gently closed the door.

“Is Manny going to jail?” Eden asked. “There's a good chance that he will,” said Mia as they descended the stairs. All during the walk to school, Eden wanted to talk about Manny and his progress through the New York City penal system. How big was jail? Did you have to wear striped uniforms, like in the
cartoons? Would his family send him a file baked into a birthday cake? Would his leg be shackled to an iron ball?

“No, they don't do things like that anymore,” Mia said. “Too bad. He deserves it.”

Mia couldn't exactly disagree, but she felt compelled to add, “He'll have to have a trial first. No one is put in jail without a trial.”

“Even someone like him?”

“Even someone like him.”

Eden was silent for a moment and then said, “Why are you wearing my Hello Kitty backpack, Mom? Isn't it, like, a little young for you?”

They had arrived at the school, so Mia didn't answer. Instead, she resisted the impulse to kiss Eden atop her tousled head and confined herself to a chirpy “Have a great day!” Then she headed for the subway station, where she swiped her MetroCard, cursed silently until the train arrived, and squeezed in at the last second before the doors closed.

She changed trains at the next stop. The express train was even more crowded. The backpack seemed to her transparent and ablaze with lights; people were staring at it right now; she could feel it, she was sure—she dared to raise her eyes and look around. Several of the seated passengers were reading; a couple of people had their eyes closed; someone in the corner was actually picking his nose—did he think he was invisible, for Christ's sake? A tall, hefty girl with a large beauty mark on one cheek took advantage of the train's brief emergence from the tunnel onto the Manhattan Bridge to pull out her cell phone and make a call. “Tommy?” she said in a breathy voice. “Tommy, it's me.” Tommy said something on the other end of the line that made the girl press the phone closer to her face and smile.

When she saw that smile, Mia actually began to relax a little. Or rather, she shifted her worrying to another sphere entirely. Now that she was no longer convinced everyone in the subway car knew what she
was carrying on her back, she allowed herself to think about what in the world she was going to tell Solly Phelps.

She had rehearsed any number of different lies in her mind. The bill had been found among the papers of an elderly, deceased uncle; the bill had been sewn into the cushions of a sofa belonging to that same uncle; the bill had been secreted between the back of a frame and a watercolor landscape she had purchased at a flea market in New Jersey. No, Maine—Maine was even farther away, harder to substantiate. But whom was she kidding? These were all, as her mother would have said,

bubbemeisers,
obviously bogus explanations that he would see through in a nanosecond.

Someone knocked against the backpack from behind, and Mia's worry gears immediately shifted again. Had the bill been somehow jostled, tampered with, touched, or, God forbid,
stolen
? She snapped her head around; it was just an old Hasidic man, with a long white beard and a black brimmed hat. His big hazel eyes were meek and harmless. “Sorry,” he said. Mia nodded, heartbeat slowing only gradually. At Canal Street, the subway car emptied out, and she was able to sink gratefully into a vacated seat.

Finally, the train pulled into the station at Thirty-fourth Street. Mia practically did a grand jeté out of the doors, and strode purposefully along the platform, up the stairs, and westward. She was wearing all black again—jeans, boots, jacket, and a plush cashmere scarf Stuart had brought her as a gift from a business trip to Scotland—and she imagined the pink, white, and cherry-red backpack glowing like a beacon behind her.

The address Solly Phelps had given her was almost at the Hudson River; the wind was appreciably sharper here, and she stood for a moment before the building, watching the trash blow around the street. An empty coffee cup swirled; greasy wrappers from Burger King fluttered with an unexpected delicacy. She checked the intercom system— a series of worn brass buttons, relics of an older, more gracious New

York lined up in a neat column—before she located the one she sought. Solomon Phelps, Suite 912. She pressed it and was startled by the alacrity of the reply.

“Yes?”

“We have an appointment? Nine o'clock?” Damn, why was she making a simple statement sound like Oliver Twist asking for more?

“Come right up.” His voice was even more melt-you-into-puddles than she remembered.

There was no doorman or security guard of any kind, and the small lobby was empty except for a stack of cardboard boxes piled rather precariously on top of one another in a corner. The elevator—another relic, with a lighted dial and black arrow to denote the floor—opened immediately in response to the touch of a button. The ninth floor was a warren of doors, some numbered, others not. She followed the hall in one direction and then another before finding 912. There was no bell or buzzer, so she knocked.

The door flew open, as if the wind that was blowing around outside had penetrated both elevator and corridor.

“Phelps,” he said, sticking out his hand. “Pleased to meet you.” She took the proffered hand and looked up. He was huge. Not just tall, like Lloyd, but wide and solid, a veritable mountain of a man. He wore a crisp white shirt, baggy corduroy pants, a black-and-white polka-dot bow tie, and a pair of black suspenders. His hair was that kind of soft, almost shimmery white that sometimes reads as blond, and it grazed his shirt collar; his eyes—small, grayish-blue, fixed on her face—had a shrewd and unsettling look.

“Come in,” he said, even though there was not much
in
to speak of. The office was cluttered with file cabinets and shelves disgorging books and stacks of papers, but also with several items of a less expected nature: a grandfather clock, a royal blue unicycle, an ornately curved wooden hat rack, and, mounted on the wall, the head of a stuffed moose whose thick, spreading antlers nearly grazed Solly's face. On the battered
desk were more papers, a laptop, and a round glass bowl containing a solitary black fish swimming around and around. Mia felt almost hypnotized by the fish's lyrical circling, and she was glad when Solly broke the spell by dragging over a chair—throne-sized, claw-footed, and covered in disintegrating aubergine brocade—so that she could sit down.

“So you say you have a big bill?” Solly said, not wasting any time. “I do.”

“Well, let's have a look, shall we?” He moved aside some of the desk's clutter and unfurled a length of white paper to cover the torn, dingy blotter. There was something dignified, even grand about the gesture.

Mia sat down gingerly, and eased Hello Kitty off her back. She took out the envelope containing the bill, and when she had freed it from its various layers of protection, she placed it, faceup, on the white paper.

Solly's head swooped down like a hawk's. She saw his shrewd, small eyes widen ever so slightly; he compressed his lips, and his nostrils flared. Mia waited, but he didn't speak. Instead, he extracted a pair of latex gloves from a box in his drawer and picked up the bill. She watched while he looked at it, front and back. The same drawer yielded a sleek silver flashlight; he trained its laserlike beam over every centimeter of the paper. Then he actually raised it to his nose and, to Mia's surprise, sniffed it. Would he lick it, too? She suddenly felt hot and realized she was still wearing her jacket. She took it off and unlooped the long scarf from around her neck. Solly continued to scrutinize the bill.