Breaking the Bank (45 page)

The group began to resemble a parade. Patrick was in his element working the crowd—he might as well have been campaigning for mayor—shaking hands, chatting up the women, nodding emphatically. She almost expected him to start handing out balloons, playing the kazoo, kissing babies. But he also kept her in his line of sight; every so often, she could see him looking over at her.

Mia, however, was too jittery to be enjoying any of this, strange and antic though it may have been. She was the one who had to worry about what would happen when they actually reached the bank. For most everyone else, it was just entertainment.

Cox reached the bank's doorway first. He looked at the detective and nodded.

“Everyone stand outside,” said Smyth. One of the camera guys tried to slip by while his back was turned to the door. “Hey, that means you, too. What part of
outside
don't you understand?” The camera guy stepped back into the crowd.

“Okay, Mia,” said Cox. “Let's go in.”

Mia took a last look at the group assembled outside. She saw Patrick and Lloyd right up front. Reluctantly, she surrendered Eden's hand and urged her to go stand with her father. Eden gave Patrick a curious look before taking Lloyd's hand. Just behind them stood her mother, her brother, and, lo and behold, Gail. Julie. Fred. Bev. People she had
worked with at various publishing houses. Mr. Ortiz and Inez. Solly Phelps, in a fedora. Reporters and photographers.

She turned and walked through the doors. There was the machine, just where it had always been. The velvet rope was gone; she saw no impediment now. Blauner stood alongside her while Smyth went into the bank. He brought over two uniformed security guards, along with a nervous-looking guy in an ill-fitting suit who must have been the manager.

“All right, Ms. Saul,” said Blauner. “You can go ahead now.”

Mia groped under her coat for the locket. She felt it at the hollow of her throat, right where it belonged. She took a step toward the machine. But before she could do anything, she heard a voice—Patrick's voice—rising up and over the assembled crowd.

“There she goes, folks. Just watch and see what she can do. She's amazing—a real live magician, only the magic's not make-believe, it's in her. I know, ‘cause I've seen it. Watch and believe,” he said. “You won't be disappointed.”

Mia turned sharply around. Two of the cameramen had their lenses trained on Patrick; the redhead in green began talking rapidly into a cell phone.

“That guy.” Cox rolled his eyes. “That's the nut who was in the courtroom yesterday.”

“Go ahead, College Girl,” Patrick called out, his gaze locking with Mia's. “Don't be afraid.”

“What's going on?” asked the bank manager. He was shrinking inside the voluminous jacket. “Who is that man? Can you get him to shut up?”

“He's not doing anything wrong,” said Mia. “He's just talking. He's allowed to talk, isn't he?” She felt sorry for the bank manager; the worry pulled his features, as if by magnetic force, to the center of his face, leaving the periphery bare and vulnerable.

“I don't want this getting out of hand,” Blauner said. “There are a lot of people out there. We don't want a situation.”

“You know him,” Cox said to Mia. “Can't you get him to be quiet?”

“I'll try,” Mia said, going to the door. “Patrick,” she called out. “Pat-rick, these guys want you to chill, okay? They don't want any trouble.”

“There won't be any trouble, College Girl. I'll make sure of that. I just want everyone to know who you are, what you've done.”

“Let's just get on with it,” said Smyth, who walked over to where they were standing. “The bank's got their security in place, and I've already called for some backup. They should be pulling up now.” The door closed again; the group outside seemed eager, not hostile or violent.

“All right,” said Mia, quietly. “All
right.
” She walked resolutely up to the machine, inserted her card, and pressed the familiar commands. She had not a clue about what would happen. One hundred dollars, that was all she had ever asked for. Everything else had been a windfall— unearned, unexpected. For an awful moment, the machine was still. Was it out of order again? Or angry, in some inexplicable way, that she had drawn this crowd and was about to expose its secrets?

Then the screen changed color, the blue warming to periwinkle, violet, and, finally, a pale, celestial pink. The whirring started, followed by the strains, once again, of a harp. Words, this time in black, appeared on the screen:

You used it well.

Mia felt the hum and throb of the crowd behind her, but she didn't dare turn away. The words faded, leaving a rectangle as pink and glowing as the dawn. And then came the bills, thousands this time, all so crisp and fresh and new.

“Did you do it, College Girl? Did you?” Patrick somehow managed to yank open the door, outmaneuvering the policemen who stood in front of it.

“Yes!” she cried, spinning around and holding up the bills to show him. “Look, just look—” A sudden gust of wind blasted through the
open door, and the bills were snatched from Mia's hand. They swirled around the bank's lobby, and a few of them flew out and into the street.

“Money!” cried someone in the crowd. “They're giving away free money!” Everyone surged forward, drawn by the bills.

“I've got a thousand!”

“Me, too!”

“I've got two—no, three!”

The police started moving forward, but they were not fast enough. The door was wide open now, and people flooded in: Patrick, Stuart, Gail, Betty, Lloyd. Fred hesitated, but when Bev charged ahead, he followed. Eden wriggled through the press of bodies.

“Let me see!” she crowed. “I want to see, too!”

The machine kept churning out bills—thousand after thousand— that were caught up by the billowing wind, blown and scattered to the amazed, delighted crowd. The police and the security officers vainly tried to catch them, but there were too many.

“Where are they coming from?” asked someone. “Who cares?” was the reply. “Just make sure you get some!”

“You did it, College Girl!” Patrick laughed, grabbing her in his arms. “You fucking did it!” Mia looked at him, and at the two bills still clutched in her own hands. Then suddenly, she tossed her arms up and let the wind take the bills, blowing them around with all the others.

Cameras started rolling, and the news dolls began talking into their microphones. “We're live here in Brooklyn today to witness a most amazing occurrence . . .” began the one in orange.

“Coming to you live from Park Slope . . .” said the one in green. “How can this be happening?” moaned the bank manager; he looked a little green, too, as if he might be sick. “What does it mean?”

But no one really heard him. Instead, they were all caught up in the thick, impossible swirl of bills, bills that were, to Mia's astonished gaze, like leaves, like seeds, like manna from heaven, raining down upon the waiting soil of the world.

T
HE STORY MADE
the nightly news on NY1, Fox 5, and ABC. It ran in the three New York newspapers—the
Times,
the
Post,
and the
Daily News
—as well as in a smattering of papers across the country: Akron, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, San Francisco, and Boston. There was a flurry of calls from TV and radio shows, the most memorable of which came from that most hallowed of all television goddesses, Oprah herself. In the end, though, Mia's appearance on the show was bumped by the story of a transgendered “man” who had given birth to twins. But Oprah's interest acted like blood in the water, and several TV executives eagerly came sniffing around. Mia sold the rights to her story to a twenty-six-year-old hotshot producer at HBO who planned to turn it into a movie. Plus, all the media attention gave her another edge: she was able to shine some unwelcome light on her slimeball landlord, forcing him, quite literally, to clean up his act. The junk was hauled out of the lobby; the hallways were washed and waxed; and, praise the Lord, the elevator was finally fixed. Lloyd got his act together, too—he started sending checks at regular intervals, and, since he was now back in the States, he set up a regular schedule for seeing Eden. Mia could tell he was impressed about the HBO offer; he even hinted about being introduced to her contacts there. How typically, totally Lloyd, Mia thought. Maybe she would actually introduce him to some of those HBO people. Then again, maybe not.

The court eventually decided that since the money had absolutely no explicable source and could not be traced, Mia was allowed to keep whatever she received from the machine. The branch of the bank near Mia's apartment closed down—temporarily, the sign said—but there
was no indication of when, if ever, it would reopen. The ten-thousand-dollar bill, however, remained in police possession, still part of the ongoing investigation into Weed's death. Then there was the locket, which Mia had taken to Sotheby's for appraisal. It was, in fact, a documented piece, missing for decades, and now rapturously welcomed back into the public eye. Mia put it up for auction, where it was purchased by a major museum for a substantial sum; she kept a small portion of the money and donated the rest to a nonprofit organization whose mission it was to kindle interest in poetry in the public schools. She was truly sorry to see it go. But when she learned of its history, she knew she was doing the right thing; truly, it belonged to the Keats lovers of the world, not around her neck.

Mia was sitting pretty now. Between the money she had socked away from the machine, the money from HBO, and the money from the sale of the locket, she was able to set up a college fund for Eden and buy a house on East Fifth Street, just off Caton Avenue. It was a small, lopsided affair, with below-code wiring and floors so pitched you could roll marbles down them. But there was a slate mantelpiece where the (nonworking) fireplace sat, parquet floors under the buckled linoleum, and a backyard that was home to both a fig tree and a crab apple. There was also a separate apartment on the top floor, perfect for a tenant, once Mia got the place into some kind of decent shape. Which she did, hiring a dreadlocked Rastafarian contractor and spending every free minute she had trolling the aisles of Home Depot and Lowe's. After too many months of plaster-and Sheetrock-infused dust, she and Eden were ready to kiss Fourth Avenue a not-so-fond farewell and settle into their new home. There was even enough money for Mia to buy a used Prius, which was handy since she planned to invite both Luisa and Mr. Ortiz to visit, and she wanted to be able to ferry them back and forth.

It was early June by this point. The crab apple tree out back had already bloomed, exquisitely, and its soft, candy-pink petals still carpeted the ground. Mia knew she ought to clean them up but really, they gave
the place such an enchanted look—perfect for the engagement party she threw for Julie. The fig tree produced exactly two figs, both green and small and nearly juiceless, but there was always next year, right? Who knew just what fruit she might reap? She and Eden planted geraniums in the window boxes and started a compost pile in the yard. Her brother brought Gail and the girls for a visit; when she and Stu were briefly alone together in the kitchen, he handed her a large white box.

“What's this?” she asked. “House-warming present,” he said. “The house is warm enough as it is,” Mia said, strangely flustered. “I didn't put in central AC.”

“Just open it, would you?”

Beneath the white tissue Mia found the painting of the birds' eggs she had spied—and loved—in Stuart's house, as well as an envelope containing a very generous check.

“You didn't have to,” Mia said; she didn't know what meant more, the fact that he knew she would want the painting, or the amount of the check.

“I know. But I wanted to.”

“That's a lot of money,” she murmured. “Use it well,” Stuart said. His tone was light but his look, intense. “Isn't that your mantra these days?”

All That Trash
won a coveted award for best nonfiction of the year; at the ceremony, to which both she and Eden were invited, the author, Howard Shapiro, kissed her on both cheeks and thanked her publicly for her role in his success. After that, she was offered not one but two plum editorial jobs, and had the unprecedented luxury of choosing between them.

E
VERY NOW AND
then, she ran into Fred, whose house was not far from hers. At first they kept each other at a palpable distance—only the briefest of nods, the curtest of hellos were exchanged. But one
night, Mia got a frantic call from him saying that Dudley had been having seizures, and Fred was taking him to the emergency veterinary clinic on Warren Street; would she meet him there? Mia thought of Dudley, his heavy tread, his squashed face. Of course she would.

It turned out that the cat was in end-stage bladder cancer, and Mia remained in the room with Fred while the vet administered the injections that would quiet, and then still, his great feline heart. Afterward, Mia accepted Fred's offer of a ride home on his motorcycle, though she didn't invite him in. Instead, they sat on the front stoop together, Fred sobbing quietly and Mia gently rubbing small, concentric circles on his back until eventually the sobs subsided.

“Let me get you something to drink,” she said, when she saw he had calmed down. “I made lemonade. Freshly squeezed. I could pour a splash of vodka in it, too.”

“So now you're making drinks for me?”

“Why not?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light. “I'll be right back.”

She returned to the stoop with two tall glasses and a wad of napkins on a tray. Fred accepted the drink and took a sip.

“Pretty good for an amateur,” he said. She smiled, but didn't reply. “So,” he began again. “Do you still see that guy? The one with all that hair?”