Showdown in the Economy of Good and Evil Read online

  Evan couldn’t remember a time in his life when he had wanted so badly to impress a person with the first words out of his mouth. He had rehearsed this moment again and again. But now, everything that leapt to mind sounded a little too fanboy when he thought it through. So there he stood, trying not to look like he was shaking as he frantically searched for something to say to his employer—and let’s be honest—his hero.

  “Mr. Wolfe, I . . .” he started to say, but Justin turned on his heel and ran back around to the driver’s side of the van as if he’d forgotten something.

  Evan used the extra moment to chide himself. Think of something meaningful to say, dipshit, he thought. Dude just bought the Cleveland Browns. Ask him about the Cleveland fucking Browns.

  “So, how ’bout them Cleveland fucking Browns?” Evan said the moment Justin returned. He didn’t need to see David’s perplexed, sidelong stare to immediately hate himself for speaking these words. He just felt fortunate that their intended recipient either hadn’t heard them or had decided to ignore them, impossibly stupid as they were.

  Whatever the case, Justin Wolfe seemed far more interested in fiddling with the keys he’d just retrieved from the ignition. “I gotta tell you,” he said as he strode over to the van’s side door, “I’m glad we brought the camera. Because that’s one hell of a group in there.”

  Camera? Evan thought.

  Justin didn’t explain what he meant. Instead, he gave an easy smile and leaned in to slide a key into the lock.

  Evan had seen this same sliding door wrenched open at least a dozen times in the past year, so he knew what to expect. The door was rusted and old, and as such, it would catch halfway down the track. Then, once the person opening the door got it straightened out, he could yank it back the rest of the way. Inside would be three rows of bench seats packed end to end with confused, anxious, and skeptical-looking homeless people who smelled of car travel laced with the Irish Spring soap they handed out at the hospital. The faces of these people were always weather worn and world weary, their clothes donated and ill fitting. And every last one of them, to a man and to a woman, would always want to know two things as soon as the sunlight hit them:

  1) Where’s the food?

  2) Where’s my cot?

  This time, though, everything was different.

  This time, Mr. Wolfe struggled quite a lot more than did the usual driver at getting the door open. He prodded and hacked at it like a man trying to open a can of tuna with a steak knife.

  This time, once Mr. Wolfe finally did manage to get the thing open, Evan spotted a very different kind of person occupying the front row of seats.

  This time, before any of the homeless men and women on the van could debark, out climbed an improbably tall, handlebar-mustachioed hipster-type with a shoulder-mounted video camera. Before Evan could ask what was going on, Handlebar was firing up the camera and shoving it in Evan’s face.

  “This the guy?” Handlebar asked over his shoulder.

  “Uh,” Evan said.

  He looked past the cameraman to see a familiar face stepping out of the van behind him—a face so familiar that Evan had to tell himself he couldn’t possibly have this right. The face looked like it belonged to Pete fucking Smiley. Evan knew this not because he was a habitual watcher of 60 Minutes or even because he was a particularly avid consumer of pop culture. Evan knew this because his grandmother used to find Pete fucking Smiley awfully attractive, and she never minded saying so whenever a preteen Evan found himself wiling away the evening hours at her house while his parents were out.

  “Pete Smiley?” Evan asked to the winds.

  Pete Smiley did not reply. He was too busy listening to something Mr. Wolfe was telling him as he stared at his reflection in the passenger window and adjusted his tie.

  Confused as Evan was to be leering down the business end of a camera, his friends didn’t let it bother them. Laz, David, and even Nora stepped past him and Handlebar without a second glance, all of them rushing to intercept the Farm’s newest residents climbing out of the van.

  “Mr. Wolfe?” Evan called out.

  Mr. Wolfe was still speaking to Pete Smiley.

  “We weren’t expecting an interview,” Evan said, trying not to sound as nervous as he felt. “Or you, for that matter. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

  Having finished his conversation with Mr. Smiley, Mr. Wolfe performed a general wave in Evan’s direction, turned, narrowed his eyes coolly, and made his way toward the farmhouse as fast as his 1985 special-edition Jordans could carry him.

  Evan was glad that his friends were otherwise engaged, because he wouldn’t have wanted them to see the magnitude of his terror about being left here like this. No explanation. No twenty-four hours’ notice so he could spend a sleepless night thinking about what he would say to defend the concept of this Farm. No opportunity to dress himself properly for a nationally televised interview. No chance to wipe down his sweat-covered face. Come to think of it, it didn’t appear that he would be granted the benefit of sitting in one of those chairs where a snarky young woman or flamboyant young man applied the kind of makeup that would prevent him from looking like a drippy corpse on TV. Pete Smiley was wearing a pound of exactly that kind of makeup.

  But no. There Evan stood, makeup-less, his hair windblown by a mid-80s wind, his mind screaming at him about how unprepared he was to answer even the simplest questions. Suddenly he was aware of the moisture in his armpits. He could practically see the sweat stains creeping down his sleeves, and knew without a doubt that, no matter what happened from this point forward, the resulting footage would feature him spouting awkward answers and walking around with his arms pressed tightly to his sides like some kind of sunburned automaton. The thought made Evan feel slightly like leaking into his pants.

  “Why?” Evan heard himself saying.

  Handlebar cocked a smile and glanced back at Mr. Smiley, who had started in on fixing his hair.

  For a moment, Evan was angry.

  But then Pete Smiley was striding toward him through the hot Savannah sun, looking very much like a man ready to interview Evan White for 60 Minutes, and Evan’s anger blubbered back into abject terror. Mr. Smiley’s lips peeled back—not into a smile, but into an expression of know-everything ease, the kind of look one can only earn from decades in front of a camera. This man had stood in war zones while bombs exploded on ridges in the background and bullets whizzed past his head. His expression gave the impression that he had never been frightened in his life.

  Evan, meanwhile, had never been more frightened in his life.

  “Uh,” he said.

  “Justin didn’t tell you,” Mr. Smiley said. It wasn’t a question, but he paused as if expecting an answer.

  Evan couldn’t speak.

  “Should’ve figured,” Mr. Smiley said. He sucked in a breath. He looked tired, Pete Smiley. Or maybe bored. “We’re doing a piece for 60 Minutes.”

  “No shit,” Evan wanted to say. But he didn’t. Evan couldn’t speak. His hands were sweating.

  “It’s not a bother. I promise you won’t be heavily featured in the final product. Justin simply said you’d be the guy to talk to about all the back-office stuff.” Mr. Smiley glanced at Handlebar. “What did he call him, Stephen?”

  Handlebar Stephen pulled back from his camera’s viewfinder to glance up at the sky, aloof. “Uh, his numbers guy.”

  “That’s right,” Mr. Smiley said. “He called you his numbers guy. So, Numbers Guy, you ready to tell us how this operation works?”

  Though he knew very well that this camera wasn’t broadcasting to the masses at this very moment—instead, this was a recording that would be carefully edited, spliced, and turned into something watchable to be aired weeks or maybe even months down the road—Evan couldn’t help but feel like every eye in America was peering at him through that convex lens.

  “Uh,” he said.

  Nothing.

  A childhood full of loving support from his pa
rents and grandparents. A lifetime of sharpening his mind in school. A keen, unflinching focus on economics. The endorsement as a Numbers Guy from one of the wealthiest and most charismatic men in the world. The simple proof that he had built the economics behind this Farm from the ground up, and as such, there was no one on this planet more knowledgeable about its workings or more capable of defending its efficacy than Evan White. None of it mattered. Evan had no idea what to say. Upon careful review, every thought sounded stupid. He could see everything they had worked for going up in flames because of one misappropriated statement or one flubbed figure that would set public opinion against them.

  Pete Smiley looked disappointed. The time for Evan to impress him ran thin.

  Say something, dickhead, Evan thought. Everyone’s counting on you to say something.

  So, Evan White screwed up every ounce of courage he could manage and drew a breath to say the most profound thing that leapt into his mind.

  Chapter 2 The World’s Most Remarkable Wristwatch

  Money is just a placeholder for wants and needs. It sits there doing nothing until it’s traded for someone else’s wants and needs. A person without money has wants and needs, but nothing to trade with—no placeholder.

  —Justin Wolfe

  “Uh,” Evan said.

  “Right,” Mr. Smiley said. He sighed. “Tell you what . . . we wanted to interview you on location. You know? One of those walk-and-talk numbers we’re always doing. You’ve seen those, right?”

  Evan gave a vigorous nod.

  “But you seem . . .” Mr. Smiley paused, searching for the right words. “Ill prepared. So how about we do the on-camera interview later? Maybe after you’ve had a chance to clean yourself up.”

  Evan was nodding like a grade-schooler who’d just been offered some nice orange slices and a juice box.

  “Okay then, Numbers Guy,” Handlebar Stephen said. “Why don’t you show us around the Farm a little?”

  “We’ll keep the camera rolling,” Mr. Smiley explained, “but all we really need is just a few shots. Something that shows these people in action.”

  “Uh,” Evan said. He shook his head to clear it. “Yeah, okay. Maybe we could walk you through the check-in process.”

  “Great idea.”

  Now the camera was turning away from him, and Evan could feel his legs under him again. For a minute there, he’d been so intensely nervous that it felt like maybe his ass had walked off of its own accord, leaving his upper and lower body detached from each other.

  “So what comes first?” Mr. Smiley asked.

  “Well,” Evan said, looking down at his clipboard, “we do something of a roll call to make sure we have all the right people.”

  “Excellent. Don’t let us get in your way.”

  The two visitors stepped back, giving Evan a wide berth that made him no less intensely aware of the camera.

  “Just pretend we’re not here,” Handlebar Stephen said.

  “Right,” Evan said. How could Justin just spring this on us? he thought, trying not to let his frustration show to the almighty camera. The truth was that he didn’t feel that frustration because of the lack of notice. Really, he’d just wanted Mr. Wolfe to acknowledge him. He’d been working for the man for the better part of a year. In that time, Evan had gone through every permutation of how their first meeting—whenever it finally happened—would play out. Justin leaves me with a 60 Minutes crew, totally ignores me, and then jogs away on shoes worth more than my car was not one of the scenarios he had practiced in his head.

  But there would be time to worry about that later. For now, he had to consider the best way to ensure that everything Handlebar Stephen’s camera captured was in some way flattering to the Farm. In that respect, this had been an inauspicious start.

  The six passengers looked every bit as motley as the new arrivals often did. Meanwhile, Laz, David, and Nora had surrounded them like a press pool all hopped up on a gubernatorial sex scandal. Had this been any other van, Evan would’ve seized this moment to remind his friends that the new arrivals were not prizes to be won, but on this occasion, he was far more conscious of how inhumane something like that would sound on camera.

  “So what can you do?” Nora was asking of a tall, gangly man with ebony skin. From the profile the hospital had sent over in advance, Evan could guess that this was Munanire Capela, an Ethiopian immigrant who’d become homeless due to the overwhelming debt he had taken on to come to America.

  Munanire ran his hand over his shiny bald head and flashed a startlingly white smile. “Well, I can . . .” he said, trailing off for a moment, his East African accent almost musical in its tone. “At least I think I can . . .”

  Evan lost the thread of it, because his attention was drawn by the elevated voices coming from David and another of the van’s occupants. This one, a portly, broad-shouldered giant with pale skin and a scraggly red beard, was what people on the Farm had come to refer to as a presser. No matter how many vans Evan arrived to accept, he still marveled at how they always contained at least one presser—here defined as the kind of person who speaks loudly, poses frantic questions or demands, and is utterly unafraid to invade another person’s personal space.

  Lately Evan had begun to suspect that most pressers didn’t come by the trait naturally. Rather, it was a symptom of considerable time spent busking or begging for money. When you lived among the thrum of the streets—in an environment full of people all trying hard to pretend they don’t notice you—the tendency was to push your efforts to be seen and heard as far as you could. Naturally, this would lead a person to develop the habit of speaking louder than necessary and abandoning all effort to keep a comfortable distance between himself and whoever’s attention he was trying to grab.

  Whatever the source of the character trait, most pressers, after spending enough time in the comforts and the abundance of opportunity the Farm afforded them, eventually quit getting all up in people’s grills.

  “I’ll tell you what I can do,” this new presser was saying as he encroached on David’s space, “I can find the nearest cot you have to offer. And then I can have a shower and maybe something to eat. Then we’ll talk about what I owe you. Or what you owe me maybe.”

  “Well don’t that beat all, Laz my boy,” David said. “We got us another layabout.”

  “Heavens to Betsy, but he is a rather large gentleman,” Laz offered. He strode over to join the conversation and do a little space-encroaching of his own on the presser. “I wonder, friend, how would you feel about shoving your hand in a wheat thresher?”

  “Shoving my hand in a what now?” the presser said.

  “Laz,” Evan said in a stage whisper. “David. Please.”

  When they gave him a wide-eyed, “What’s up, boss?” face, he gestured to the camera. They both nodded as if understanding his meaning, then got right back to interrogating the presser.

  Behind the bickering trio, a young couple stood and stared blankly at the ground. At least Evan assumed they were a couple, as their posture suggested an unspoken comfort and closeness. The file gave their names as Javier and Francesca Soto, but it offered little else. There was no information on where they came from, how they became homeless, or whether they were married or brother and sister. They would be among the youngest at the Farm, that was easy enough to see, and their expressions shined with wonder. Evan decided that they seemed harmless enough to approach.

  Quickly he learned that they spoke Spanish and only Spanish. That hadn’t been in the profile either. Evan made a mental note to contact the hospital about adding that piece of information to their file forms. Being monolingual himself, his reflex was to look for the bilingual Nora in the direction he had last seen her. But she wasn’t there anymore, and neither was Munanire. Inwardly, Evan groaned.

  “Where’d Nora go?” he asked, reaching out to pull Laz’s attention away from the presser. “And, hey, I’ve asked you not to hassle the newcomers.”

  “But this one’s j
ust so very stout,” Laz said. “What do you think, Mr. White? He looks like a farmer, wouldn’t you say?”

  Evan pinched the bridge of his nose. “What he looks like is not a concern of mine right now. Right now, all I need is to check off the names on this list so we can match these people to their files, get them their wristbands, and set them up in the living quarters for orientation.” He pointed back at Handlebar Stephen and Mr. Smiley. “And again, I would like to call your attention to the gentlemen from 60 Minutes. You’re all aware of 60 Minutes, correct?”

  “I didn’t sign no waiver,” the presser said.

  “Oh, but you did, Mr. Morain,” Mr. Smiley called from his comfortable distance. “We have it right here in the folder.”

  The presser ignored the reporter. “Name’s Shillfo,” he said into Evan’s face. “Short for Shillphonicus the Mighty. I’m at your service, sir.”

  “Woo, now that’s fun,” David said, looking at Shillfo as if sizing him up with new eyes.

  Evan stepped back from Shillfo, whose file in fact listed his name as Sheldon Morain, and held up a hand to beg for a moment of order. He glared at David and Laz. “Listen, where’s Nora? We’ve got two Spanish speakers over here, and I need her translating skills.”

  “I speak some Spanish,” Laz said. His tone immediately suggested that he was stretching the truth more than a little thin. He stepped away to greet the couple before Evan could stop him.

  “Nora got a text on her wristband,” David explained. “Somethin’ in the kitchen she had to address. She took the African fella with her.”