Page 61

“You’ve burned some bridges, huh?” He leans back in his chair, shaking his head. “What did I tell you about loose ends, kid? You’ve got to tie them up, otherwise they come back later to bite you.”
Maxim doesn’t mean this literally. He means bury the bodies under three feet of concrete, which is how he wraps up his loose ends. And though I may occasionally use Maxim’s money to bridge the tight spots in my business, I don’t operate the way he does. I’m a chef with money problems, not a mobster.
But I also run a crew of oddballs and misfits, most of whom could stand to brush up on their anger management skills. Sometimes I’m the one stepping in to defuse the situation, other times I’m on the receiving end of the punches.
But at the end of the day, a restaurant is a business. I’m the one out here taking the risks, doing the backroom deals with guys like Maxim in order to stay afloat. I’ll choose my family over any one of those knuckleheads every time. There are going to be some burned bridges.
“As much as I’d love to deliberate which maniac is in my house right now, Maxim, I don’t have time. I have exactly—” I glance at my watch and the room goes upside down “—forty-eight minutes to get my ass home with a bag of cash. If you don’t loan me that money, I won’t... I can’t... I don’t think I can save them.”
He stares across the desk at me. Rock-hard. Giving me nothing. No pity, no sympathy and, most importantly, no olive branch. Not even a teeny tiny twig. Every last ounce of hope I was holding on to with both hands fades away like a cheap buzz.
I toss the cigarette in the ashtray and drop my head in my shaking hands, pressing down hard with my palms until my skull creaks. I wish I could go back and rewind this shitty, shitty day, and undo every one of my decisions. All of them.
No, I wish I could rewind all the way to 2008, to my first time sitting at this very desk, when Maxim told me I was foolish to open a restaurant in the middle of a recession, and I did it anyway. I wish I’d been content with being somebody else’s chef, to whipping up fancy steak dinners on somebody else’s balance sheet so I could take paid vacations and the occasional long weekend and not stare at the ceiling until deep in the night, wondering how the hell I was going to make payroll. I wouldn’t be Atlanta’s Steak King, but come tomorrow I would still have a family.
But I was too cocky, too damn eager to prove I was a better businessman than my father. I had to own my own shop, and I opened my doors when restaurants all over the country were shutting theirs. Maybe that’s my problem, that success the first time around ruined me. I’d already weathered what everybody was calling a once-in-a-lifetime recession. When I ran up against another wall, I just figured I’d scale it all over again. I figured I could overcome anything.
George was right. I really am a dick.
Even worse: I am my father.
I reach for Maxim’s phone, dragging the machine around to my side of the desk, plucking the receiver from the tray.
Maxim frowns. “Who are you calling?”
“The police. If I tell them to sneak in without sirens, maybe they won’t get anybody killed.” I tap in the numbers and my sinuses burn, that achy feeling right before the waterworks. This is it. It’s time. I don’t have any options left.
The line rings once, then goes dead. Maxim’s yellow-tinged finger is stomped on the button, holding it down.
“Cam.” He shakes his head. “This is not a job for the police. Trust me on this.”
“Then what? How?”
Maxim leans back in his chair, looking over my head at the others, the two big bouncers and the man-bunned Nick, then back to me. “I have a few ideas.”
T H E I N T E R V I E W
Juanita: I’m sorry. I know we’ve covered this already, but I’m still stuck on the fact that you didn’t call the police. Especially once you realized you couldn’t gather the ransom. You knew you were out of options, you just told me you didn’t have the money to save them, and still you decided not to call the police.
Cam: Is there a question in there somewhere?
Juanita: Yes.
Cam: [silence]
Juanita: Don’t you want to answer it?
Cam: No.
Juanita: No, you didn’t call the police, or no, you don’t want to answer? Which one?
Cam: Both. Next question.
Juanita: Fine. You testified that you managed to stitch together just over $49,000 from numerous accounts, that you placed the cash for the ransom in a box on the floorboard of your truck, and then...what? Where is that money now?
Cam: Maybe you haven’t heard, but I recently filed for bankruptcy. My property was seized and is being sold off to pay back investors and debtors. Whatever cash I had on hand, whatever else I owned of value...it’s all gone. My possessions were picked clean.
Juanita: Yes, but that $49,000, there’s no record of it in any of your bankruptcy documents. I know I’m not the only one who’s wondering, where did that money go? Who has it now?