part one

the almost family


chapter 1


The first time he meets Emil Scott, he falls in love.

They’re at an art opening in Bushwick, the latest neighborhood in Brooklyn to burst with creatives and almosts. For over an hour Henry Vek and Emil Scott have circled each other without realizing it. Then it’s like an old rom-com. Their eyes lock across the room. They look away. (They’re straight-ish for 2014, and the rule is you have to look away.) Then, oh so casually, they find their way to the same painting. And it’s here, standing close to the painting, close to each other, that Emil taps his back left pocket and asks if Henry wants to buy some heroin.

“Jesus fuck, no. Not here.” He puts a warning hand to Emil’s chest—already they’re touching. “Outside. Now.”

Five minutes later they’re stepping out onto the roof. “Hold the door,” Henry says. He walks off, comes back with a loose brick, and props open the door. Light comes up at them from the stairwell. Henry breaks out rolling papers, a bag of kush, and a bottle of Jim Beam and paper cups he swiped from the opening. Then they blaze, and when they exchange names, Henry chokes on his smoke. Emil Scott? Jesus, this guy’s got art up at half the coffee shops on Metropolitan. Another detail: he’s good.

Henry feels within himself a tremor that could grow into a life-quake.

Emil is tall and long-limbed, like Henry, but without the muscle, and his rounding stomach suggests a habit of late-night pizzas. He’s handsome, with his bold nose and his bedroom smile, but what catches Henry’s attention now are the paint stains. The yellow on the hands, the purple on his pants—this is a worker. A tickle in Henry tells him this is something he can use.

“You’ve got that big canvas up at the Thirsty Bear,” Henry says, handing the joint to Emil. “That purple octopus? With the baby octopus? Blew my fucking mind.”

Emil shrugs.

“Nuh-uh. Don’t piss on your gift.” Henry lowers his voice, leans in. “I paint too, okay? Or I’m trying. Doing it since … since my mom died. She was an artist. And she was pretty good, and I fucking suck. But you’ve got something. Don’t act like it doesn’t matter. ’Cause let me tell you. It fucking matters.”

Henry brings his hands in front of him. Long fingers, flat tips, calloused skin. There are scars on his knuckles, and there’s a long, fresh scab on his left palm, as if from a blade badly deflected. And yes, there’s paint, just like on Emil’s hands.

“I don’t know,” Henry says. His voice low and fragile. “There’s something … I can’t get it out.” A deep sigh, and then a hardening comes over him. He raises his eyes and looks at Emil. “But you’re getting it out. And you’re connecting to people. Your work sells, right?”

Emil drains his cup, makes a whiskey face. “Sometimes.”

“Don’t piss on sometimes. You’re a real artist.” Henry refills Emil’s cup. “So the fuck you doing selling heroin?”

Emil has, until this moment, been somewhere between cool and snarky. Now he wilts. “It’s fentanyl,” he says. “Cut with lactose. It’s rent—that’s all it is.”

“Shit. I get it.” Henry is nodding. Side schemes, queasy compromises, backroom handoffs. We all got to eat. Henry’s mouth plays a smile as he thinks about the strange kinship he and Emil somehow sniffed out downstairs. If Emil is maybe 90 percent artist and 10 percent criminal, Henry is the same, only with the proportions reversed. And this completes the detail Henry picked up before: Emil’s work is up everywhere because he hustles—and he hustles because he needs the money. We can be useful to each other, Henry thinks, and if that’s not the basis for a connection … Henry looks the artist over, confirming to himself that this isn’t some specter born of hard liquor and GMO’d weed. No hooves, Henry sees, and no horns. He shakes his head and grins. “My uncle was right.”

Emil looks up. “About what?”

“You never know someone till you get your nose up their money.”

Henry feels Emil’s gaze moving over him, feels the terror and pleasure of being seen. Emil says, “Your uncle?”

“He’s got these little gems,” Henry says. “He can drop some heavy shit. Sometimes it takes me a week to get my head around it.”

Emil puts down his whiskey and takes out a short pencil, a pocket sketchbook. “Tell me about him.” His pencil dances all over the page, his gaze returning again and again to Henry.

Who leans back into a shadow. “Whoa. You’re not drawing me.”

“But you looked so perfect.” He smiles at Henry’s hesitation. “The way your face changed when you mentioned your uncle.” He puts his hands together. “Please? This is just for my sketchbook.”

Henry shakes his head no, but then slides out from his shadow. “Are you for real?”

“Of course,” Emil says, putting down his pencil at last. “But I’m my kind of real.”

A profound feeling moves through Henry. It’s desire, it’s gratitude, it’s fear—it’s one of those in-between somethings he has in him and can’t figure out. “Okay, my uncle.” Deep breath, a roll of the shoulders. “He’s my family. I mean … he’s all that’s left.”

Emil takes up his pencil. “Your folks?”

“Gone. Both of them. My mom was an artist, like I said. I mean not paid, like you. She was a cashier at Union Market over in Park Slope. And then the car crash.” Henry’s looking out at the night now, his voice low. “And my dad went a few years later. Aneurysm. I was ten.” More whiskey. He’s feeling too much, not getting it right. Emil’s attention, though, seems to be on Henry’s hands. Detail one, Henry himself notices: they have closed into fists. Detail two: the scars on his knuckles.

Fuck the whiskey. He puts down the drink, lights the joint, pulls hard, and hands it to Emil. A tight moment, then he says, “So Uncle Shecky takes me in, and he teaches me the business. And it doesn’t matter that I’m ten, that I’m fifteen, that I’m twenty-two now. It’s always the same. He’s teaching me.”

“Like?”

“Like adjustable-interest loans, interest-only home loans.”

“He does mortgages?”

“And LLCs, and PACs, and profitable nonprofits.” Henry smiles, picking up steam. “And pass-through accounts, and offshore accounts—all kinds of shit. Whatever the client needs. My uncle’s like a secret genius.” Henry takes the joint back from Emil. Pinches it out and says, “Uncle Shecky’s got this amazing, twisty mind. And there’s no show with him. Like he’s great and he’s different, and he doesn’t even know it.”

“And I was just thinking the same thing about you,” Emil says.

Their eyes meet, then Henry looks away. When he raises his eyes again, there’s no break in his voice, and his hands open. “Your turn. Heroin, fentanyl—what’s the fucking deal?”

Emil’s smile is pained, as if telling a doctor about an embarrassing itch. “Was kind of hoping we’d let that drop.” His hand goes into his skinny jeans, and out comes a ziplock bag. Inside: teeny baggies, maybe a dozen. “I buy for ten, sell for twenty.” A shrug, like it’s no biggie, but his embarrassment is obvious. “Just a supplement.”

“Hey, glass houses,” Henry says.

“But?”

“Opioids are bad business. They went suburban, and now the courts are coming down hard. ODs are everywhere—fucking Scarsdale, places where judges live. Hitting home for them. So they’re laying down these crazy sentences. Bottom line?” He leans in and puts a heavy hand on Emil’s shoulder. Feels a warm charge move into him, spread down through his body. “Not. Fucking. Worth it.” He releases his grip. “There’s a better way.”

Emil’s voice goes soft: “I’m open to suggestions.”

A predator’s smile as Henry gives Emil a soft elbow to the side. “You’re going to come work for me.”

* * *

Next day, a construction site. Henry shields his eyes from the sun. Emil takes out his sketchbook, which, by this light, Henry can see has a floral print cover.

Emil asks, “What am I looking at?”

“A client.” Henry waves at one of the workers, who waves back—but slowly, as if confused by Henry’s visit. Wary. He watches Henry for some time before getting back to his tools.

“Most of our clients are decent people,” Henry says. He takes out a baggie, rolls a joint. “Two-thirds are mom-and-pop shops. Just regular Brooklynites who don’t want the IRS in their pockets. So we take their cash and help them load up on Amex cards. Or we pay their bills—big ones, like college tuition—through generous relatives.”

“You work with their relatives?”

“They’re overseas,” Henry says. “Also, they don’t exist.”

Emil, who has stopped sketching, shakes his head admiringly and gets back to work.

“So that’s scenario A, the tax dodge. But sometimes it’s the opposite.” Henry flicks the lighter, but the wind knocks it out. “They’re not avoiding taxes.” He flicks it again and gets the joint going. “They want them.”

Emil again lowers his sketchbook. “They want to pay taxes?”

“Let’s pretend we’re talking about Mel.” Henry indicates the construction worker he waved at before. “Let’s say he’s a subcontractor, unlicensed, unofficial. And he’s been getting paid under the table. So he’s living the dream, right? No taxes, no problems. But then he gets shackled.” Henry points to his ring finger. “Wife, baby. And they need space. Bank is like, you want a home loan? How about you get some reportable income.”

Emil gives up on his sketchbook, puts it in his pocket. Accepts the joint from Henry. “How does that work?”

“Step one is the same. We take the cash. But then we create a big old paper trail.” Henry relights the joint for Emil. “Articles of incorporation, certificate of this and that.” Pockets the lighter. “Now Mel’s got legitimate income. We can print up some pretty-looking tax returns if Mel wants that. And now Mel can go back to the bank and get a loan. Wife’s happy, Mel’s happy. And that’s all we want for our clients.”

Nearby: the loud beeps of a truck backing up. They wait it out.

“Okay, so two-thirds of your clients are Mel,” Emil says.

“And the mom-and-pop shops.”

“Right.” Emil’s eyes flash mischief. “What about the other third?”

Henry takes the joint back, his face a cold mask now. “Not your problem. Not your business.” He’s quiet a moment and then says, more gently, “Ignorance is deniability. Uncle Shecky says that. What we’re doing here—right now, at this site—you’ll never do this again. You’ll never see a client. Ignorance is safety. For them, for you. Listen.” He pinches out the joint, pockets it. He takes Emil by the arm and leads him away from the site. “Darkness is your friend. I run the mules in my family, and this is my promise to you.” He leans in—his mouth, Emil’s ear—and says, “I will keep you in the dark.”


Copyright © 2020 by Brian Selfon