My mom’s eyes dart from side to side, and even though she hasn't quite realized what has happened, I do.
"His name was erased," I say quietly. "Removed, replaced. You can't very well have someone who dies in such a horrific car accident as one of the directors of a shell company that's not really supposed to exist."
"Why would they have this website?"
"It's pretty common," I say. "This is to make it look legitimate. I mean, they file taxes after all. The problem is that everything is laundered. If they do what you say they do, they charge for different types of services in order to pay a nominal amount of taxes and so that they are actually a business. Of course, they would never put purchases of ammunition or anything like that on their invoices. But the invoices are coded nevertheless, and reports are made with their accounts. I doubt they report more than twenty percent of their income a month. Pigs could fly in another universe, perhaps."
She shakes her head, listening carefully and taking it all in. I wish so much that she had told me about all of this earlier. We wouldn't have wasted months and months and perhaps some other evidence could have been found.
For one thing, the wrong body would have been identified much sooner. We sit in silence for a while, listening to the measured breaths of our own lungs, not saying anything else. Mom has made a lot of mistakes but so have I, and as angry as I am with her, I also feel like I have to forgive her and give her some grace, mainly because I want to give that to myself as well.
9
Dante
Standing across from him in the vault in Montauk, Lincoln and I exchange glances and do another quick rifle through the room's artifacts.
"It was supposed to be here but it's gone," he says, shaking his head.
"Or maybe it was never here."
"What are you talking about?" he asks, shocked, unwilling to even consider such a possibility.
"Come on. This is our father we're talking about," I say, shaking my head.
"Exactly."
"When has he ever set us up? When has he ever been reliable?" I ask, shrugging my shoulders.
Lincoln and I have different views of our father, the charming womanizer who never met a woman he couldn't make fall in love with him. I see him more like a scam artist and Lincoln still sees him as an idol. I think that he got over those feelings of loss that we've all experienced as a child because our father was anything but a reliable father, a reliable dad. But when he got older, he found us more interesting, stimulating to be around and that's when he took more of an interest.
This isn't the time or place for this, but I start to laugh. Just out of the blue, the chuckles escape my lips and I can't help but lose myself in the absurdity of the situation. I trusted him once again and once again he didn't show up because a person who will make promises to a child and then not go through with them is a person who couldn't care less about adults.
"It has to be here somewhere.” Lincoln looks frantically through the books.
I take a more leisurely approach. I pick up an old copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and I peruse through the pages. I've always loved this book. I've always admired all the scrapes that Tom would get into and then get out of. And how much of a little shit disturber he was. After giving it a little bit of thought, I slip it into my pocket.
"You can't take that, we're here for the folio only."
"We came all this way, let's take something as a memento, right?" I say with a casual shrug.
Lincoln continues the search. Not all the books on the shelves are carefully filed away or wrapped in plastic. Others are just sitting there on the shelf and he even checks behind them in case the folio is hidden somewhere.
Our time isn't particularly limited, but we shouldn’t stay here for long. I know that Dad is watching from inside the car on his laptop since he gained entrance to the camera recordings.
I turn toward one of the walls and I open my arms out wide asking, "Where is it?" out loud, even though there is no sound here.
My phone goes off. It's a burner of course and one that I'll dispose of quickly as soon as this is done.
"Is it not there?" Dad asks, surprised. I can hear the surprise in his voice.
"No. Should it be?" I say as nonchalantly as possible, trying to show him that this isn't the kind of thing that can rattle me.
"It's supposed to be there. Keep looking, boys.” Dad tries his best to give us encouragement but I have already given up and Lincoln looks to be almost done with this whole thing as well.
"Are there any more secret passageways? It has to be there," Dad says. "I just can't believe it. I mean, could he have moved it?"
"I don't know, but I'm getting out of here," I say and hang up.
I give Lincoln a few more minutes and then he reluctantly follows me out. Our footsteps are careful and we avoid the cameras in the room, sticking to the perimeter of the walls. We broke the camera in the vault, but there are others and so it's much easier to just write over the footage from the one in the vault versus all of them all over the house.
When we get out to the backyard, I walk ahead, covered by darkness and we make our way over to the nearby cul-de-sac, through the woods out back where Dad is parked in his used Toyota Corolla, a burner car that was recently bought, title never transferred, and will be sold immediately after this job. As soon as I get into the front passenger seat, Dad begins what I initially assume is a show. He acts surprised, shocked, torn up over the whole situation.
The motel isn't too far away and again we park the car a couple of streets over and make our way to our room where we can speak in peace.
"What the hell happened?" Lincoln demands to know. "How could it not be there?"
"I have no idea," Dad says, unbuttoning the top button of his dress shirt, pulling on the collar of his t-shirt, making it clear that he's quite uncomfortable wearing something casual like this.
"I'm not sure what that was all about," I say, shaking my head, "but I don't like anyone playing games with my time."
I take a seat on the edge of the bed while Lincoln paces like a caged tiger in front of me. I hate the anxiety that he puts out and it seems to fill the room with some toxic gas suffocating me.
"You need to relax," I say, "take a seat."
"No, I can't."
"Then get the fuck out," I say, "this room is too small to do that here."
He leaves, slamming the door and I say to myself that some fresh air will be good for him.
"So tell me more about this folio," I say, turning toward Dad, who's sitting at the dining room table with his head buried in his hands.
"What are you talking about?" he asks.
"What I'm talking about is, was this a scam all along? Are you trying to get us in trouble? You're not going to erase the footage? What's the play here? Trying to get me to do something else?"
"No, not at all. Everything about this job was true, except for the folio wasn't there. If it even exists."
He shakes his head. He pours himself a glass of scotch, his hands trembling, but doesn't drink a sip of it. Instead he just stares at it.