McGrath slouched back in his seat, resting his chin on his hand, waiting. For Spencer, everything in the room was magnified. The fan blades spun in slow motion, like big heavy-lift helicopters taking off—thwump, thwump, thwump. A fly trapped between the window glass and the blinds buzzed angrily. Spencer just needed to get out of there somehow. Even Sheila watched him with scorn in her eyes, eyes that said he was too soft, in the wrong place.

Well, you are in the wrong place.

“Dom,” he said eventually. “You, uh, you didn’t tell me I was signing up for this.”

Cal snorted and shook his head with a tight-lipped smile.

“Show some cojones,” said McGrath. “I’ve given you opportunities to prove your worth and you’ve come through. There’s no difference between this and life for a junior exec at Coca-Cola.”

“There’s a big difference, Dom. ‘Life’ means something totally different here. I have a little girl! If I go to jail, she has no one.”

As he said it, he realized how much he wanted to be there for Abby, for her not to be brought up by some sweet family while her no-good dad rotted away in a cell.

“We’re all playing those stakes, Spence. ’Most all of us here got family. But you seen the way we operate. We aren’t normal. We aren’t some bunch of lame-assed street trash with YouTube attention spans. This is planned, paid for. Cost me a lot already. You ask me or Johnny Boy a question about anything and we’ll answer it.”

Spencer felt like he’d be struggling for breath if the heat in that room got any more oppressive. The fan thwumped away but even slower, like time was grinding to a halt and they were all falling into a black hole. He looked from face to face. Seemed like he was the only one who realized they’d reached event horizon. Seemed they were all cold cooling. Then Spencer realized that they’d all passed their event horizons long ago. He looked again at the Yo-Yo, at Eddie—guys who knew where they were headed when they were kids, who knew they’d only get if they took. And now they were waiting to see if Spencer would catch up and see that he, too, was a man whose only hope was to learn to take, really take.

“I’m in.”

32

32

Escape Velocity

Johnny Boy stood on the john. He had to stand on the john in order to see out the little window and down onto the depot lot. He half watched, half just listened. McGrath leaned against the sink. He watched Johnny Boy watching, while taking the occasional puff on his cigar.

“How’s he seeming?” McGrath asked.

Johnny Boy looked out the window again.

“I can’t see him yet,” he said. “But I can hear him talking to Denny.”

“What’s he talking about?” asked McGrath.