Don’t get nuts, I tell myself – but before my brain can buy it, a quiet rumble fills the air. Here comes the train, which barrels into the station and blows my hair into an instant comb-over. Brushing it back into place with my fingers, I make my way toward the subway car and take one last peek down the platform. Every twenty feet, there’s a small crowd shoving itself toward an open door. I don’t know if he’s on board or gave up, but the man with the Journal is gone.

I fight my way onto the already overstuffed subway car, where I’m smashed between a Hispanic woman in a puffy gray ski jacket, and a balding man in a flasher overcoat. As the train makes its way downtown, the crowd slowly begins to thin and a few seats actually open. Indeed, when I transfer at Bleecker and pick up the D train at the Broadway-Lafayette stop, all the downtown fashion plates wearing black shoes, black jeans, and black leather jackets make their way off. It’s not the last stop before we head to Brooklyn, but it is the last cool stop.

Enjoying the extra space on the car, I lean up against a nearby metal pole. It’s the first time since I left the office that I actually catch my breath – that is, until I see who’s waiting for me at the far end of the car – the man hiding behind the Wall Street Journal.

Without the crowds and the distance, it’s easy to give him the quick once-over. That’s all I need. I plow toward him without even thinking. He lifts the paper a little higher, but it’s too late. With a sharp swipe, I rip it from his hands and reveal who’s been stalking me for the past fifteen minutes. “What the hell are you doing here, Charlie?”

My brother ekes out a playful grin, but it doesn’t help.

“Answer me!” I demand.

Charlie looks up, almost impressed. “Wow – the full Starsky & Hutch. What if I was a spy… or a man with a hook?”

“I saw your shoes, dimwit – now what do you think you’re doing?”

Pointing with his chin, Charlie motions to the crowd in the car, all of whom are now staring. Before I can react, he slips out from under me, heads to the other end of the subway car, and invites me to follow. As we pass, a few people look up, but only for a second. Typical New York.

“Now you want to tell me what this is about, or should I just add it to your ever-growing list of stupid moves?” I scold as we continue to move through the train.

“Ever-growing?” he asks, weaving his way through the crowd. “I don’t know what you’re-?”

“With Shep,” I snarl, feeling the vein throb in my forehead. “How could you give him our final location?”

Turning my way, but refusing to slow down, Charlie waves a hand through the air as if it’s an absurd question. “C’mon, Oliver – you’re still in a huff over that?”

“Dammit, Charlie, enough with the jokes,” I say, chasing after him. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? I mean, do you ever actually stop and think about the consequences, or do you just jump off the cliff, content with being the town idiot?”

At the far end of the car, he stops dead in his tracks and turns around, glaring straight at me. “Do I look that stupid to you?”

“Well, considering what you-”

“I didn’t give him anything,” Charlie growls in a low whisper. “He has no idea where it is.”

I pause as the train skids into Grand Street – the last subway stop in Manhattan. The moment the doors open, dozens of hunched-over Chinese men and women flood the car carrying pink plastic shopping bags that reek of fresh fish. Chinatown for groceries – then on the subway, back to Brooklyn. “What’re you talking about?” I ask.

“When I showed him the Red Sheet… I pointed to the wrong bank. On purpose, Ollie.” Stepping in close, he adds, “I gave him some random place in Antigua where we have nothing. Not even a shiny dime. Of course – and this is really the best part – you were so busy yelling, he believed every word.” It takes me a second to process. “Don’t have a brain blow, Oliver. I’m not letting anyone take our cash.”

With a sharp tug, he tries to slide open the service door between the two subway cars. It’s locked. Annoyed, he cuts around me, heading back exactly the way we came. Before I can say a word, the train chugs forward… and my brother’s lost in the crowd.

“Charlie!” I shout, racing after him. “You’re a genius!”

“I still don’t understand when you planned it,” I say as we walk up the broken concrete sidewalks of Avenue U in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.

“I didn’t,” Charlie admits. “I thought of it as I was folding over the Red Sheet.”

“Are you kidding me?” I ask, laughing. “Oh, man – he never knew what hit him!”

I wait for him to laugh back, but it never happens. Nothing but silence.

“What?” I ask. “Now I can’t be happy the money’s safe? I’m just relieved you-”

“Oliver, have you been listening to yourself? You spend the whole day crying a river and saying we have to play it cool, but then the moment I tell you I screwed over Shep, you’re acting like the guy who got the last pair of Zeppelin tickets.”

Heading up the block, I stare around at the mom-and-pop storefronts that dot the Avenue U landscape – pizza parlors, cigar stores, discount shoes, a barely breathing barber shop. Except for the pizza place, they’re all closed for the night. When we were little, that meant the owners shut the lights and locked the doors. Today, it means lowering a roll-down steel-reinforced shield that looks like a metal garage door. No doubt about it, trust isn’t what it used to be.

“C’mon, Charlie – I know you love taking in the lost puppy, but you barely know this guy-”

“It doesn’t matter!” Charlie interrupts. “We’re still screwing him over and twisting the butter knife in his back!” Nearing the corner of the block, he stretches his arm out and lets his fingertips skate along the metal shield that hides the used bookstore. “Damn!” Charlie shouts, punching the metal as hard as he can. “He trusted us t-” He grits his teeth and cuts himself off. “It’s exactly what I hate about money…”

He makes a sharp right on Bedford Avenue, and the garage door storefronts give way to an uninspired 1950s-era six-story apartment building.

“I see handsome men!” a female voice shouts from a window on the fourth floor. I don’t even have to look up to know who it is.

“Thanks, mom,” I mutter under my breath. Keep the routine, I tell myself as I follow Charlie toward the lobby. Monday night is Family Night. Even when you don’t want it to be.

By the time the elevator reaches the fourth floor and we head to mom’s apartment, Charlie’s yet to say a single word to me. That’s how he always gets when he’s upset – shut-down and turned off. The same way dad solved his problems. Naturally, if he were dealing with anyone else, they’d be able to read it on his face, but with mom…

“Who wants a nice baked ziti!?” she shouts, opening the door even before we hit the doorbell. As always, her smile’s wide and her arms are outstretched, searching for a hug.

“Ziti!?” Charlie sings, jumping forward and hugging her back. “We talking original or extra-crispy?” As corny as the joke is, mom laughs hysterically… and pulls Charlie even closer.

“So when do we eat?” he asks, sidestepping her and pulling the sauce-covered wooden spoon from her hand.

“Charlie, don’t…”

It’s too late. He shoves the spoon in his mouth, taking an early taste of the sauce.

“Are you happy?” she laughs, turning around to watch him. “Now you’ve got your germs all over it.”

Holding the spoon like a lollipop, he presses it flat against his dangling tongue. “Aaaaaaaaaaaa,” he moans, his tongue still out of his mouth. “Ah ott o ehrrs.”

“You do too have germs,” she continues to laugh, facing him directly.

“Hi, ma,” I say, still waiting at the door.

She turns back immediately, the wide smile never leaving her face. “Ooooh, my big boy,” she says, taking me in. “You know I love seeing you in a suit. So professional…”