Death Never Sleeps by E.J. Simon

changed?” she said.
    “Not to me, but I think to himself. He had to earn a living. Yet, I don’t think traditional success, the way society sees it, meant anything to him. My parents were great about supporting either of us, but you know, eventually you’ve got to find your way. For Alex, that was rough. Baseball had been his life, and there was no reason to think he wouldn’t be playing in the majors. He had been so much better than other kids his age, at any stage of his life, at least until it all fell apart.”
    “So what happened then?”
    “My father called some of his friends, executives that he knew, and arranged interviews for Alex. But he really wanted Alex to go back to school to get a degree. He figured he’d show Alex what life without one would be like, so the first job he helped him get was with one of the big airlines. My father had a friend there. Alex probably thought he was going to have a cushy desk job, but when he showed up for work, they had him cleaning the toilets in the aircraft lavatories. I think he lasted a day.”
    “Did he go back to school?”
    “No, you know that Alex hated school. Don’t forget, he’d been thrown out of two high schools until he finally graduated from Rhodes Prep in Manhattan.”
    “Yes, the school for misbehaving rich kids.”
    “Anyway, we had good family friends who owned a major insurance brokerage firm in Queens, and they took Alex on. He was pretty good at it, eventually earned his own brokerage license and set up his own small business in Whitestone. It gave him some decent income—and eventually served as the cover he needed to be able to pursue his real business. It also allowed him to show enough legitimate income so he could buy a house and spend some of the money he earned in his illegal business without attracting the attention of the IRS.”
    Michael looked at Samantha. She was listening intently. “But he changed. He started running around with these shady types, and his girlfriends were no longer nice, smart college girls but hard-edged bimbos.”
    “Michael, are you sure he changed, or did the people around him just reflect who he was? Wasn’t he always just a hard-nosed tough guy with no patience for any crap, including the niceties and hypocrisy that most of us just tolerate?”
    “You may be right. Listen, for many years I never thought that much about Alex. I mean, I was pursuing my own career. I couldn’t afford to be seen with a lot of his friends, and I certainly couldn’t get too close to his business. I’m actually not sure I remember all my feelings at that point. I just had to stay clear. I didn’t tell any of my business associates what he did. Some only vaguely knew that I had a brother. Don’t forget, he was busted a few times. What company was going to hire or promote a senior executive whose brother was what they considered to be a mobster?”
    These were arguments Michael knew Samantha had heard in bits and pieces over the years. “I guess I knew all this, although it’s funny how seldom we’ve discussed it.”
    Michael continued, “Maybe the problem too was that I started seeing Alex through the lens, so to speak, of his wives, each of whom I detested. Maybe I had no right to judge. Alex was always the first to say he was a terrible husband. But in any case, I always thought his wives made him worse, either encouraging or enabling his unhealthy behaviors while enjoying the fruits of it—the money.”
    “Your brother always had a big circle of friends that he seemed to enjoy,” Samantha said.
    “More than that. Although he was antisocial in some ways, it didn’t apply to his friends. He’d do anything for them, and they’d do anything for him. Alex was the most loyal guy I ever met. Remember when he was having some heart problems, and we brought him to see Dr. Roney?”
    “Yes. Hadn’t his own cardiologist—I forgot his name—some doctor on Long Island, actually been arrested for hiding a video camera in