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went scampering after it. Gulls cawed hungrily. Kids screamed happily.
    â€œ
Now the shepherd, he has a stick, a cane, a staff . . . and you
know
he’ll use it if he has to.
”
    The dog brought the stick back and, as he threw it again, Frank pictured Bumpy on a day when he’d done the same thing.
    â€œ
But most of the time, the shepherd doesn’t have to use that stick. He can move the whole herd, quietly. With skill. With brains. And with the force of his own personality.
”
    On days like this, Frank and Bumpy would have ended up at the hot dog stand, where Bumpy would buy a naked pup for his German shepherd to gulp down, while the boss and his number one man would chomp at condiment-laden hot dogs like two more kids at Coney Island.
    And Bumpy would dispense wisdom with relish, hot dog or otherwise, though the memory of his mentor’s words were more recent, not given at Coney Island but in front of the electronics store window where Bumpy had died.
    â€œ
What right do they have, cutting out the suppliers, pushing all the middlemen out, buying direct from the manufacturer? Putting Americans out of work! This is the way it is now, Frank.
”
    There on that bleak beach, Frank’s mind assembled scraps of information and bits and pieces of advice into what he knew at once was a bold new plan.
    Bumpy had been right: things had changed, cutting out the middlemen was a fact of life, the way it was now . . . and the little boy who’d seen the white men blow his cousin’s brains out of his skull knew that youcouldn’t change the way things were. You had to accept the world as it was and work within it.
    And make the world work for you.
    If he were really to be white-boy rich someday, Frank would first have to cut out the Italians, whatever risk that might entail. No more picking up packages from Rossi or the like. Fuck that shit—Frank would get his own supply.
    The voice of that soldier kid, Willie, sitting at Red Top’s table, pushed out Bumpy Johnson’s in Frank’s mind:
Good shit in Vietnam.
    This war, this stupid war, had turned a lot of kids, black and white, into casual druggies and a good number into outright junkies. Right now Vietnam was full of GIs getting strung out, and shit good enough to string out GIs was good enough for Frank to sell state-side. Sell, hell—he’d make a killing.
    So it was that Frank Lucas went from Coney Island to a doctor’s office in Harlem where he took a series of shots, not the least of which was to prevent malaria. Then he went to a photography shop for a picture to take with him to the post office, where it was stapled to a passport application.
    From there Frank went to the Chemical Bank in the Bronx where the banker he’d seen at Bumpy’s wake watched, at Frank’s invitation, as Frank emptied packet after packet of cash from a safety deposit box into a briefcase.
    One packet Frank slipped into the banker’s jacket pocket.
    â€œGet yourself a new suit,” Frank said with a wisp ofa smile. Then he added: “
Now’s
a good time to talk business.”
    In an office arrayed with the portraits of dignified white bankers going back fifty years or more, the banker typed out a Chemical Bank check for Frank Lucas in the amount of $400,000.
    â€œYou’re not nervous,” the banker said, “traveling alone to Southeast Asia?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWell, I would be.”
    Frank took the check, folded it to fit in his billfold, where he put it. “Brad, I never went to school, not for a day. But I got a PhD in ‘Street.’ ”
    â€œThese are different streets, Frank.”
    â€œThanks for your concern. But I’ll make out.”

4. Past Due
    The next afternoon, gray but not as cold as some recent days, Richie stood with his ex-wife Laurie in a Newark park, where their five-year-old son Michael could play in a grassy area with other youngsters, and not