Scout’s Honor: Chapter 26

The Job

“Where was I?” Parson asked Austen. He’d lost his thread to a passing skirt. He popped his French cuffs, smoothed his navy blazer’s pocket square, and smiled at himself in the mirror above the Oak Room’s magnificent bar. He tossed a peanut into his mouth. “Oh, yeah. The surprise party. Picture this: It’s the day before her birthday, so Eileen’s off her guard. She walks into the restaurant for our intimate dinner and sees all her friends laughing and drinking, ignoring us. She does the jungle freeze, crushed that everyone is partying without her. I say, ‘Maybe we ought to go somewhere else,’ and just before her heart breaks, they all yell, ‘Surprise! Happy birthday!’ and the future chief justice bursts into tears. I really fooled her.” 

“Into thinking you love her enough to marry her?” asked Austen, not expecting an answer. As much as he loved Parson, he hated the way his friend had strung Eileen along.

Parson’s smile faded, then he caught a flash of red in the beveled mirror and swiveled to sigh at a spike-heeled woman sauntering past, outside the glamorous oak-paneled bar. “Check that.” He pointed through the extravagant window that overlooked Central Park. 

Austen frowned. Long troubled by Parson’s easy way with women and agnosticism over fidelity, he knew anything he had to say would only hurt his one friend. 

“Right. Let’s talk about something else.” Parson tossed another peanut in the air. It bounced off his front tooth. “Let’s hear about your money. Tell me about Scout’s millions.” Like the howitzers they’d cowered from in Vietnam, Parson barraged Austen with questions until he finally crumbled, admitting he had all four of his borough apartment buildings in escrow ready to be traded into a building on Fifth Avenue. 

“Whoa. How much that cost? Nothing cheap on Fifth. Come on.” 

“The price isn’t important.”

“It is to me. Come on, spill it.” Again, he fired away until Austen admitted to a broad range. Playing at cross-examination, Parson pinned his friend down to within fifty thousand dollars of the price. “Now, where did you get that kind of money?” 

“I told you, I’m selling all my other buildings, and I borrowed the rest. Getting out of the flea-trap business.”

“Son, I know what you paid for those dogs, and I remember what you said they were worth. They ain’t buying Fifth Avenue. And your credit sucks. So what changed? Maybe you struck oil while you were sweeping out the basement?”

“I’m converting this new building into co-ops. Serious money in that.”

“You’re going to need a good lawyer to do the paperwork, get the city approvals—that conversion shit isn’t easy. That smart guy I told you about last summer, Brendan O’Keefe at Ascott Swanne? He’d be perfect.”

“They’re too expensive. Wouldn’t take me as a client anyway.” He sighed at the grime seemingly tattooed on his hands. “Hell, you laugh at me every time I put on my suit.”

“Everybody laughs when you put that suit on.” Parson looked perplexed, as if stumped by a riddle. He caught the bartender’s eye, raised two fingers. “One more drink, then we burn it.”

 “Do you want to know what my problem is now?” Austen asked.

“Nah.”

“Yes, you do, you jerk. Here it is: Nobody takes a twenty-seven-year-old seriously. I call about some building, and it’s OK until I show up to look at it. Then the broker asks if we should wait for my dad.”

Parson caught another peanut in his mouth, said, “Long as you promise to buy us all the rounds, dinner, the works, Parson Shoe-in will handle it for you.”

“How?”

“First clue, you’re about to hire a very fancy, very expensive law firm. Nothing says big league like throwing money away on lawyers. But first we really have to burn this suit—hell, probably need a special permit, this shit’s so flammable.” 

“It’s not that bad. Is it?” asked Austen.

“Worse. Tomorrow we’re going shopping. You can afford some swank building where my people can’t be janitors, you can afford three new suits and a dozen shirts. And new glasses, gold frames.”

“Gold?” Austen wondered if two suits would do, appalled at the thought of spending money on himself. He’d told himself he felt no guilt over selling the cocaine, that he was owed, but that was a lie. His foray into dealing was bleeding his conscience, one drop at a time. The only thing he could treat himself to was hard work. 

“You want to borrow money, you can’t look like you need it,” Parson barreled ahead, missing Austen’s tone. “A billionaire can look poor; you can’t. Another thing: If you want to look like an adult, more respectable, get your front teeth capped. Don’t give me that, I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. That gap makes you look like a kid.”

As drinks drifted into dinner at a trattoria on 65th, Austen realized an unforeseen cost to his new fortune. He could no longer explain his financial exploits—detail his success to his audience of one—for Parson was too bright to accept fairy tales about overly accommodating sellers or one-hundred-percent financing. He wondered how many deals he would need to do before his money was fumigated. Where was the joy in success if you couldn’t share it with your only friend?

The trattoria was littered with tacky Italian travel posters and empty wine bottles hanging from the ceiling, the flocking locals willing to sacrifice ambience for pasta served by the pound. Parson thought the owner a genius because his prices were reasonable and he hired only large-breasted young women as waiters. They all wore undersized T-shirts that bore his caricatured likeness, a potbellied Italian smiling over his stove. Parson lit a cigarette and glanced around, wondering how profitable the restaurant was. “Maybe another carafe of Vino Tavolo instead? That Tavolo has to be the biggest winery in Italy. You listening to me, Scout? Something wrong? You’re way too quiet. Sorry if I pushed you too hard.”

 “No, no.” Austen waved his hand, a weak smile fixed. He knew the only way out. “Sure, get another bottle. Stuff’s not bad.” 

“Not bad? You ever thought of becoming a wine critic?” He beamed at a particularly busty blonde waitress across the room. 

“Want to know something?” Austen fanned away Parson’s smoke and then dropped his head, a defendant awaiting a jury’s verdict. Now was the time to tell him everything, to seek understanding—perhaps, compassion—for his crimes. Parson would understand. “How I’m really buying that building? How it all began when I was nineteen?”

“What? Nineteen? You were with me then, bro. Yeah, absolutely, but just a sec.” He glanced back at the bustling waitress. “Look at me, please, baby, just look at me once. All right, play it that way. Mohammed’s going to that pair of mountains.” 

Austen sipped from an indestructible water glass, observing his friend’s prowl through the bunched tables. His secrets had chafed his soul raw for years. They were his alone to bear, but, until his return to Lemon Grove, he’d had self-defense as a thin comforter. But that had unraveled when he’d begun selling to Jimmy the Bone. Now, he was a narcotraficante. Would confessing to Parson offer any relief? Was he entitled to any? He chewed his lip while Parson engaged the young woman with a smile, resting a hand on her shoulder as though they were related. She laughed at something he said. 

Austen could not have been more alone in the crowded room. He lowered his head and folded his arms across his chest. The truth was simple—no one would ever understand or forgive. He was a killer and a drug dealer. 

Parson circled back a moment later, eyes bright, exulting. “Got her number. She’s going to bring us the better stuff. Where were we? Oh, yeah. Your building, let’s hear how you’re really buying it… Hey, you OK?”

Austen leaned back and tightened his grip on his chest. “Yeah, fine. Tell me about your plan. How you’re going to make me respectable.”

“There you go again. Dodging with a question. You really don’t look good—you sure you’re alright?”

“Fine, just tired. I’ll bore you with that story later. So, how are you going to help me?” asked Austen.

“As you like to say, here it is: You’re going to work for a swanky French investment bank, one we’re going to dream up right now.”

“What?” cried Austen, not understanding. 

Parson laughed. “Rather than Richard Austen, boy developer, you’re now the regional vice president of, oh, let’s call it, ‘duPlessis Freres’, a fabulously wealthy firm so secretive no one’s ever heard of it.”

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