Read Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766) for Free Online Page B

the big boys say. Only that’s in the long run, and we’re a long ways from there right now. Our lives will be done before we get there, before we ever see any benefit, which I doubt there’ll be. Anyway, the plant shuts down, and where do I end up? In a scrap-metal shop, working like a beast, and for what? I’ll tell you what: no future, nothing, and no place nice, a certain number of calories each week, most of them from canned goods, and no health insurance. Where are you without health insurance? You’re nowhere. But it goes up each year, cuts into what little else you have. And one day it’s so expensive the man that owns the company tells you he can’t afford to give it to you anymore. Who knows? Maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe he can’t. So all of a sudden you’re living at your own risk, and so are the people you love and can’t do a damned thing for. Then your wife gets sick, and she’s out of work for a while. And your boy gets sick, too. The big C, and he doesn’t do so well. You apply where you can for help. You take him where they’ll see him. You’re the last people they call from the waiting room, where you can’t even afford to buy him a drink from the vending machines now that the big corporations have taken them over. So while he’s dying, you write yourself one of those checks the credit-card people used to send you with your bill. One hundred, then five hundred, it adds up. But you don’t let it bother you in the beginning, because your luck is bound to turn. You hear stories about better jobs someplace else, or someone strikes it rich, wins a few grand in the scratch-off lottery.”
    Billy recognized the temper that so often lurked beneath the surface composure of losers, who lacked confidence, lived on a diet of Chinese whispers, traded in the inflated, counterfeit currency of half-truth and exaggeration. He studied the man in the clerical collar, looking for the right way to block or tackle, to disarm him without having the gun go off in the process. But the man was too far away. Billy said, “How did you find this house?”
    â€œYou made it so easy.
Architectural Digest,
simple as that,” the priest announced, removing a few quarter-folded tear sheets from his jacket pocket. “‘W. V. Claussen, Bragged Himself to Death.’ How’s that for an obituary?”
    â€œYou think I’m another one of those country-club guys, don’t you?” Billy asked.
    â€œWhatever, I couldn’t say. I think you’re lucky and careless with the people who aren’t. That’s all that matters.”
    â€œLucky, sure, I don’t deny that. But is that my fault? I’m not careless, Father. We’ve done a lot of good. We’ve brought liquidity to—I mean, we’ve put funds in the hands of—millions of people who would not have had them otherwise. And most of them have been responsible with their privileges, and their lives have been better, less rocky, and more comfortable because we’ve been there.”
    â€œAnd the rest you addict? We’re the same people we always were, sir, but so are you. Don’t you think we know that? You’re the company store. Only now you’ve got the whole country, practically, under your thumb.”
    â€œThat’s unfair.”
    â€œWe’re not irresponsible, Mr. Claussen. Mark my words, you son of a bitch, we’re nothing like irresponsible. Whatever we are, it’s only what you’ve made us by insisting on your pound of flesh.”
    Billy looked through the windows at the dark sky of the solstice. “What do you want? Please understand. I am very sorry your son has died.”
    â€œI didn’t say he was dead—not yet.”
    â€œAgain, I’m sorry,” Billy said. “If you need help—”
    â€œI can assure you I don’t. I’ve already found that.”
    â€œGood,