“He’s sweet,” Carl said after a moment, surprising himself. “You told me a little about him but, you know, two years of jail. I didn’t think he’d be so… so sweet.”
Chuck let out a slow breath. “C—Michael was always sweet,” he said, his voice a little sad. “That was one of the most difficult things about him. I mean, when I met him, he was married and nuts about his wife. Every way but sexually. I think he still is. I left him and his useless fucking brothers in good shape financially. I took the bank take, invested the shit out of it, and handed the three of them a clean million each, no questions asked. His brothers are still serving their nickel. For all I know, they’ll blow that money on meth and hookers when they get out, because they were that stupid. But the minute Michael got those account numbers, he sent them to his wife. And I was thinking, ‘Oh, buddy. She’s going to take your money and run.’ But she didn’t. She took the money and got an apartment in a better neighborhood with better schools for the kids and started making arrangements to move the whole family out of state. I monitored those accounts—she didn’t spend too much, and she didn’t cheat on him. Not once. And I don’t know what he said to her when he got out, but I know he’s got plans to spend Christmas in Ohio with her and the kids and has asked them to spend some time with him next summer. I think he calls them every day. I….” Chuck blew out a breath. “I am actually jealous of the little bastard, because he’s got more of a family with his ex-wife than I ever had before I met Josh Salinger, and then Lucius, you know?”
Carl nodded, the information comforting him somehow. “So he really is sweet,” he said, his instincts confirmed but with a little sadness. Too sweet for Carl, anyway.
“Guess so.” But there was something reserved about the way Chuck said that.
“What?” Carl asked. “What are you not telling me?”
Chuck let out a breath. “Look, some of this may be guilt. I told you how things ended with Michael, and it sucked. I was going to take him with me—blow that town and not go back—but he wouldn’t leave his wife. I said we should tell his brothers that the other guys in the heist were going to double-cross them, but he knew they wouldn’t believe him. He was right. They’d been beating on him his entire life. They wouldn’t have changed just because he heard the job was going wrong. I ended up turning them over to the police and leaving while the cops took down the guys who were planning to blow people away, and that doesn’t sit right with me. But Michael? He hasn’t shown a trace of resentment over that. And I know that, objectively, I gave him a better place in his life when he got out of prison than when he went in, but I just keep thinking… man, how bad, how fucking miserable, did his life have to be to think two years of prison was worth it so he could break free when he was done. And I don’t like the answers. Now he made it perfectly clear to me when we started our little thing that he was never—never—leaving his wife and kids. And the more I think about that, the more I think it was a kindness to me, because it meant I didn’t have to think about how to get him out of a shit situation with no way to win. I don’t want him ever in that situation again. Ever. Him and me were never gonna be forever, but… God, the least I can do is keep him out of the family business, you know what I mean?”
Carl nodded, taking in every word. “I do,” he said after a moment.
“But what?” Chuck asked.
“But nothing,” Carl lied. “It’s not my business. He’s a sweet guy, but I’m probably some super-old boring asshole in a suit to him.”
Chuck snorted. “Oh, buddy. Seriously. That’s sad.”
“What?”
“So sad. Like, ‘forty years old without a blowjob’ sad.”
“I’m thirty-eight. What are you talking about?” Carl asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Oh, I can’t even tell you how sad that is!” Chuck needled.
“Now you’re just saying that to piss me off.”
Chuck laughed softly and leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Sure, Soderbergh. That’s what I’m doing. Just, you know. The next time someone asks you if you want to see their birds, remember that anything can be a euphemism for ‘penis,’ would you?”
Carl scowled at him. “He had a peregrine falcon in a mew behind the hangar and an entire covey of sage grouse in the field beyond. No penises to be seen,” he said. “Until now.”
Chuck laughed so hard, he snorted and then laughed some more. Carl tried—hard—to ignore him while he finished off his paperwork for the job he, Hunter, and Chuck were traveling to Brussels to perform.
But Chuck wasn’t done with him yet.
“Everything in order?” he asked quietly.
Carl closed his laptop and leaned back. Ever since the beginning of July, when Josh Salinger had been diagnosed with leukemia, that tone of voice among any of Josh’s family or friends could only indicate one topic of conversation.
“Yeah,” he said. He remembered that kid he’d seen so long ago, singing the theme to SpongeBob in four different languages. Carl had spent that entire summer following Felix, Julia, Danny, and Josh around Europe. He’d seen Danny teaching Josh how to panhandle outside an Irish pub, and Julia teaching the kid math by counting windows in a castle in Bavaria. He’d been thoroughly crushing on Danny by then, but even his jealousy toward Felix hadn’t been able to stifle his appreciation as he watched the boy ride his father’s broad shoulders as they traveled the crowded streets of London. That whole summer, he’d tracked the family by tiny hints of crime—not enough evidence to prosecute, ever, but Carl could recognize Danny Mitchell’s small, whimsical signatures in the dark. And Carl had witnessed their devotion to the little boy.
After Danny and Felix had fallen out and Carl had stumbled into Danny at a rehab clinic outside of Wales, Carl had felt Danny’s devotion to the boy through a year of absence and half a world of distance.
Carl would never forget the morning he’d woken up alone, a small note on the pillow next to him.
As goodbyes went, there were worse things than a note on the pillow.
And Carl had known Danny was never coming back. It had taken eight more years for Danny and Felix to reconcile, but Carl had never been more than a footnote in Danny Mitchell’s extensive effort to live without Felix and the makeshift family he’d forged out of a lifetime of loneliness and dreams.
When he’d run into Danny on an investigation back in March and realized his crew had expanded to Josh’s friends too, he should have worked his damnedest to put them all in jail.
It never crossed his mind.
Danny and Felix had reconciled, it was true, but Carl had lived those empty years on the company dime, and he’d been… alone. So alone.
That night he’d run into the Salinger crew, Julia had asked him if he wanted to join their little gathering at the mansion when it was done. After some posturing and puffing—thieves liked to brag, he’d learned—he’d been welcomed.
They’d even filled him in on the job.
He’d helped them a few times since as the suit. The security guy. Their inside man. Not once had he done anything he’d regretted as much as half the things he’d done for Serpentus.