Page 106 of Jesse

But there’s too much… wrongness here, for it to be a wedding.

“What the fuck?” Zach whispers.

No one answers him. We have no answers. Only more questions.

Then suddenly everyone down below goes quiet. The hushed murmurs stop and everyone stands.

Johnny appears at the head of the room and the people clap. Not like… applause, exactly. But polite clapping.

Johnny stands at the top of the room under a spotlight that coats him in an eerie white haze.

Then, without anyone speaking a word, a woman at the top of the room stands and walks forward towards him.

I realize that whatever this dinner is, it’s over. Everyone has already eaten.

The woman approaches Johnny, stops in front of him, then does a little bow, and hands him a white envelope.

“What the fuck?” I mumble.

Joey shushes me and when I look over at Zach, he’s just shrugging.

A man is now standing next to Johnny. He takes the envelope when Johnny offers it, and places it in a large metal box on wheels. While all that was happening a line has formed along the side of the banquet hall. And the whole thing repeats itself.

They approach Johnny, bow, hand him the envelope, and Johnny hands it off to be placed in the box.

It takes me several minutes to realize that people are leaving. That the room is emptying out. One by one, as they hand over whatever is in that envelope, they exit through doors directly below us.

We watch as every single person in the room hands him an envelope. And by the time it’s done my legs are cramping and everyone is getting restless.

But we stay. Because surely Johnny will say something, right?

He has not said a word this whole time.

But when the last person hands over their envelope Johnny places it inside the box himself, flips the large trunk lid closed, and turns to leave, pulling the box behind him.

No comment at all.

And that makes sense. Because there’s no one left to talk to.

Joey crawls over to us, still being quiet and stealthy, even though there’s no one left down below to hide from. “Let’s go,” he says.

We all crawl back the way we came, then stand, walk down the hallway in silence, and then enter the stairs and descend back to Johnny’s floor.

He’s waiting for us in the office. The box beside him. He opens it up to reveal more than two hundred white envelopes.

“Dude,” I say. “What the fuck was that?”

He just hands me an envelope and says, “Open it and see.”

I take the envelope. It’s sealed with black wax. And imprinted in the wax is a monogram with the initials WAY. I shoot Johnny a questioning look, but he just says, “Open it.”

I crack the wax and pull the flap up. Inside is… “A card?” I say, once again looking at Johnny for some kind of explanation. He says nothing.

The card says:

Promissory note in the amount of one hundred million dollars for The Way from Member Number Two Hundred Nine.

“Who the fuck is The Way?” I ask, just as Joey comes over and takes the check from me.