His full name is Bernard McKensie. He shows up in Tony’s life at exactly the right moment — the way certain people do, as if the universe had been arranging the introduction for years.
Bernie is a big man. Bald, broad-shouldered, with a smile that takes over his entire face and a laugh you can hear from two rooms away. He works in IT — computers, systems, the future that’s arriving faster than most people in 1989 Illinois can quite comprehend. Bernie comprehends it just fine.
He doesn’t ask a lot of questions before he decides where he stands. He looks at Tony — really looks — and makes up his mind quickly and doesn’t change it.
What Bernie brings to Tony’s world isn’t muscle or money or connections, though he has all of those eventually. What he brings is steadiness. Competence. The particular confidence of a man who has figured out who he is and stopped apologizing for it.
In a book full of people who fail Tony or use him or simply don’t see him, Bernie is something different. He’s the man who shows up and stays. Family not through blood but through choice — the most reliable kind.
— Les
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