Past the wall of the foyer I see him leaning forward in his chair at the head of the dining room table. He’s holding an envelope. At the other end of the table, standing with his hands fidgeting in his back pockets, is a boy who can’t be more than fifteen. I recognize him as the kid who shovels our driveway.

“I can get the rest of it next week,” the kid says.

My father breathes loudly through his nose. He looks into the envelope. “How many customers have I gotten you? How many people on this block, and on that new cul-de-sac?”

“Eleven,” the kid says softly.

“How many?”

“Eleven. Well, twelve, including you.”

“That’s right, twelve including me. And those people would have nothing to do with you if I hadn’t made some calls. You and I have a very simple arrangement. Ten percent per job with a ten-dollar minimum. Do the math, kid.”

“I can get it to you. I’ll get it to you next week.”

My father catches sight of me standing in the foyer. He ticks his eyes back to the boy, then to me, then to the boy. He breathes through his nose again, a series of three slow, constrained breaths. Then his hand opens and the envelope lands flat against the table. “This time,” he says.

“Thanks, Mr. Ragazzino.”

“Don’t thank me. Just make it right.”

The kid is already stepping backward out of the dining room. He turns around and his frightened face looks up at me like I’m the heavy.

“Matthew,” my father says, sounding irritated, “this is Wilson. Wilson, Matthew.”

The kid tries to smile. He pulls a hand from his back pocket and holds it out for me to shake. I shake it. It’s cold as ice.

I’ve seen similar transactions going down. Last summer my father hired a kid from the next neighborhood over to mow our lawn. Then he called a few neighbors, bargained the kid’s price down a little, and brought them into the kid’s customer loop. He charged the kid not only a finder’s fee of five dollars per customer but a recurring fee each time the kid mowed their lawns. These kids go along with it because it sounds like a fair enough deal at first. By the time they get tired of the arrangement, my father’s become an angry, half-crazy, potentially dangerous old-man-with-connections right before their eyes. It’s a sad picture. My father’s stories about having once had half the town in his pocket are fiction, but I think he actually believes them. He’s been telling them for so long now that they’ve petrified into something that feels real.

Wilson is gone. He pedaled away from our house as fast as his skinny legs would carry him. I set the videotapes on the dining room table and carry the paper towels into the kitchen.