Page 51 of Handful

Chapter 14

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— Handful —

Dutch’s office was a big corner room, two desks, huge windows. He shared it with Indira, her side spread with binders and color-coded tabs, his side clear. He did most of the club’s quiet business in there. He’d told me Tuesday My office. Thursday, nine AM so here I was.

There was a folder on the desk. Unopened. He rested his hand on it and looked at me until I sat down.

“Tuesday, I thought I was going to do this over the camera,” he said. “Then I sat with it, and the camera’s not what I’m angry about. Two patch chasers did that. You didn’t.” He sat back. “So let’s talk about your fuck up.”

I waited.

“After I pulled you in here a few months back, you stepped up. I noticed, and that’s why I’m disappointed now. You took the Tilden prep. You ran the Louisville details clean. You did the work, and you did it the whole time you had that girl on the back of your bike, which told me something — told me you could carry both, told me the man I’ve been waiting on was finally showing up.” He let that sit a second. “I was gearing up to name you SAA officially.”

That was worse than being yelled at. I’d known I was doing better. I hadn’t known he’d seen it.

“And then Saturday.” Dutch’s voice didn’t change. “You were the old you — looking at every woman in the room, hands everywhere, working the crowd like it was a job. I looked at you and thought, there he is. The one I hadn’t seen in six months.” He let that sit. “So Sunday morning I sent you out on the run. You want to know why I did that?”

I hadn’t known he’d done it on purpose. I’d thought it was just a job that needed running and I’d had the bad luck to get it.

“That was me buying you time to come to your senses. You’re welcome.” He looked at me flatly. “Not that it did you any good, apparently. You fucking clown.”

I said nothing.

“Monday night, we’ll skip.” His voice dropped a degree. “Tuesday morning I told you to be in this office today at nine. And then I waited to see what you’d do with the two days in between.” He looked at me. “What did you do?”

Oh fuck.

“Nothing,” Dutch said. “You went upstairs and you sat in your room - your new room - and you did nothing. I told you not to make me wait six months ago. I told you I was asking you to be someone you hadn’t been yet. You showed me you could do it.” His jaw tightened. “And then your girl walked away from you at a party and you folded. The Tilden people called Tuesday afternoon to lock the field date — your meeting, your contract, the one I was about to put your name on to make this official — and you didn’t come down. Holden took the call. They’ve gone cold and they’re talking to a firm in Cincinnati.” He sat back. “Two days, Handful. That’s all it took for you to put down everything you’d built.”

“Dutch—”

“Grow up.” Still quiet. He never raised his voice and it was always worse. “Stop thinking with your dick. Get your head back in the game. You proved to me you can do this — that’s the part that’s killing me, you already proved it — and the first time something hurts you fold up and hide like a kid.” He held my eyes. “Sort yourself out, or I’ll have your patch.”

“You’d bump me back to prospect over a few bad days?”

“No, I’d take your cut and you’re out. Gone.” That landed harder than anything else he’d said. “I’d rather lose you clean than spend another year watching you waste the brother I know is in there. That’s how far past patience I am.”

I’d known I might lose the girl. But the cut — no fucking way. The club was the only thing in my life that had never gone anywhere. Even when I was fucking up, even when I was the punchline, the cut was still mine.

“You’re disappointed. I hear it.” I made myself hold his eyes while I said the rest. “But whatever you think of me right now, it’s nothing compared to what I think of myself. I had her. I had the Tilden thing, the patch coming, all of it — and I knew I had it, and I stood in that room Saturday and fucked it all up. Nobody did that to me. Nobody encouraged me. I did it.”

Dutch sat back. The stare lost its edge.

“Is the patch still on the table,” I said. “The SAA. Or is it gone?”

“I told you one chance. Should’ve meant it.” He looked at me straight. “You want to know why you’re still in that chair? It’s you. That’s the whole of it.” He tapped the desk twice. “I’ve sat where you’re sitting. Damn near lost Indira being the man you were Saturday — worse than that, if you want the truth of it. So I know what this feels like. You’ve hit the fucking bottom. Nothing under you but dirt you dug yourself.” He let that settle. “As your brother, I want you to make it. Be the man you’ve got in you. Get your girl back, get wifed up, have some kids, be happy like the rest of us. I want that for you.” A pause. “As your president — you’re running out of lives, so hear me when I say this is the last time I do this. Earn it. Except now you’re climbing out of a hole you dug yourself, in the dark, with me watching.” He nodded at the door. “Church. Come on.”

We walked up the back hall together. Indira was in the common room with Maya on her hip. She clocked Dutch heading for church, handed the baby to Lilac without being asked and fell in on his other side like she’d been waiting for the cue.

She looked at me once. Didn’t say a word.

Church filled the way it always did — Colt, Holden, Glitch with his laptop and his stack of pages, Target, Baxter, Fewin, Smoke. I took my chair, two down from Dutch’s right. Indira sat at the foot of the table in Dutch’s usual spot.

Smoke looked at her, looked at Dutch, and got half a word out. “Is—”

“She’s First Lady,” Dutch said, not even turning his head. “That’s the whole of the discussion about whether she’s in the room, and it’s finished. Let’s go.”