Still, I felt like these customers were my people. We were all losing something, together. But if the history of New York is composed of scenes like that, then it will never be told, because there was nothing more to our love of the Donut Shop than that we’d sat in it, and time had passed for us there.

I stayed until the very last donut was sold, observing with a heavy heart the end of this totally crappy place.

THE MONEYMEN

1.

At the base of an ice-blue mountain, the sprawled chalet of the Club at Angel Fire reflected on a spring-fed lake, flat as hammered silver.

My flight had been late and I’d pushed the Jeep Cherokee to get to Arcade on time. After quickly checking into my hotel, a stuffy little room with a fire escape obscuring the window, I crammed my notebook in my bag and hurried to the club. Everyone would rendezvous there, and then Rubicon would take us to the lab.

Cocktails were being served in the Lookout Room, which gave a panoramic view of the mountains, cold rivers running from the peaks. A woman played Nat King Cole on a baby grand, and wait staff in tuxedos shook martinis and served champagne. My tongue tingled, but I asked for club soda with lime.

I counted twenty people in the room, many of them military officers in blue service uniforms. I wondered if they were from the nearby air force base. The only person I recognized was Baker Watt, the Rubicon middle manager. He was dangling bright slips of salmon into his mouth and chatting with a woman with a helmet of gray hair and purple-tinted glasses. When I approached, Watt introduced me to the mayor of Arcade, Peggy Vance.

“Whitney’s writing about Common Dreams,” Watt said, and gave me a knowing wink.

“Good for you,” said the mayor. “I think I’ve said to you before, Bake, they don’t get enough recognition.”

“What do you think of the program?” I asked, flipping open my notebook.

“There’s no denying Arcade’s got serious problems,” she said. “Just last week, some tourists were assaulted in the Tomahawk.”

“Really?” said Watt.

“You didn’t see it in the Ledger? That’s a relief, I thought everybody did. A mother and daughter made a wrong turn. It could happen to anyone. I hear they got out of their car, but I couldn’t tell you why. Let’s just say they both needed tetanus shots when all was said and done. If it weren’t for one of those purple trucks, who knows what might’ve happened.”

“I wouldn’t take Alejandra up there even in an armored vehicle,” Watt said, adding quickly, “That’s my wife.”

“Ninety percent of Tomahawk residents have engaged in criminal activity at some point in the last year,” the mayor said.

“Really?” I said. “Ninety percent?”