“Your luck changed.”
Cassandra frowned. “I don’t believe in luck. It’s all about context. Life moves, Jack. It flexes and twists. It’s like a snake. You slip and fall and break your leg. Bad luck, right? But then the next day someone tries to draft you into a war. You can’t go because your leg is broken. Same leg, same break, only now it’s good luck rather than bad.”
“Context.”
“Yep.”
Cassandra reached over to a box of tissues on Doc Warner’s table and pulled one out. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “I had to get out of the safe house. I could hear Anton and Fisher scratching at the door. Not, you know, literally. But they were out there and they were going to find me.”
“We’ll work it out.”
“Six hundred grand is a lot of money, Jack.”
“Sure. Now it is. In a couple hundred years, after inflation, that’ll be the price of a chocolate bar.”
Cassandra smiled her cute crooked smile. “That doesn’t help me much, though. In a couple hundred years, you and I will both be bones.”
I stood up. “We’re alive now, though. Let’s make it count.”
CHAPTER 24
“So she’s back?” Melody snuggled up to me on her couch.
Cassandra was at this very minute back in my office on my couch trying to sleep. “I feel safe here, Jack,” she’d said.
I nodded. “We got her back.”
“So, when’s the big payday?”
“I don’t think that’s how this works.”
Melody pulled away. She looked at me, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“I’m doing this as a favour. I don’t think there’s going to be any money.”
Melody blinked. “Let me give you a refresher, Jack. You work, you get paid. That’s how it works.”
“It’s not always about money.”
Melody stared at me. Then her face softened. “No, you’re right. I’ve turned down paying gigs before. Did I ever tell you about The Rattler? He’s a regular down at the club. We call him The Rattler because he always wears this hat with a snakeskin band. A few years back, he offered to buy me for a year — put me up in a luxury apartment, pay all the bills, get me a new car, whatever. I was flattered, you know? Don’t think I didn’t think about it. Maybe if he’d been better looking. But that dude always smelled like sour milk. He was the type of guy who probably had a bunch of taxidermied elk heads nailed up all over his house. That shit’s creepy, man.”
“How old was he?”
“I dunno. Sixty? Sixty-five?”
“And you were, what? Twenty? Twenty-one?”
“Twenty, yeah.”
“That’s fucked up.”
Melody shook her head. “Nah, I don’t think so. Older men have been sniffing around me my whole life. Started when I was eleven. This contractor working on the house next door propositioned me when I was coming home from school. It didn’t stop there, either. Older men — like, guys in their thirties, forties — looking me up and down at the mall, the library, wherever. Teachers ‘accidentally’ brushing up against my breasts or my butt. Guys grabbing my ass on the bus, driving by whistling, shouting all kinds of vulgar stuff.” Melody puffed and exhaled. “That’s life, right? When I was with my dad and his crew, that shit was squashed. I felt safe. And then I got a little older and there was this one guy, Patches. Yeah, I know, funny, right? Bad-ass biker with a name like a cat. Anyway, he started coming on to me real gentle-like, you know, not vulgar or anything. I was fifteen. He was twenty-seven. I was flattered, you know? Thought I was real mature. Thought I was special. This cool older guy, taking an interest in me …” Melody shook her head. She reached forward and ground out her cigarette in the ashtray. “It was all consensual, but looking back on it, it was a little fucked up, you know? Like, at fifteen, I thought I was hot shit, but I was just a kid. That dude was almost thirty. I mean, what the fuck, man?”
“I’m sorry.”
Melody shook her head. “Don’t be. It is what it is. Men have been looking at me my whole goddamn life.” She grinned. “Now they just have to pay for the privilege.”
The doorbell rang. Melody looked up. “Hold on a sec.” She kissed my cheek and bounced to her feet. I watched her leave and then I stood up and followed.
A tall young man stood with Melody in the kitchen, which was trapped in the 1970s — shitty yellow and brown linoleum floor and wood panelling everywhere. Melody was always griping about how she was going to remodel one of these days, but she hadn’t done anything about it yet.
Melody grinned. “Jack, this is Marcus.”
Marcus and I shook hands. His grip wasn’t strong. The man looked worried.
“Marcus and I have a business proposition for you. You want a beer?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Melody popped open the fridge and pulled out three beers. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You know I’ve been dealing now and then at the club, right? A few bags here and there, no biggie. Well, we’re going to up our game. We’ve got some coke, and we’re gonna step on that shit and then we’re going to rock it up. And Marcus here is going to help sell that shit.”
Marcus frowned. “You didn’t say anything about crack. I don’t know shit about selling crack.” He shook his head. “That’s racist, man.”
Melody frowned. “Come on, Marcus. You know it’s not like that. It’s not because you’re black. It’s because you’ve got the connect. You’ve got plenty of steady customers lined up with their hands out.”
Marcus shook his head. “My people want powder, man. I sell to friends at parties, friends of friends, a few folks I know in the restaurant biz, and at school. I’m telling you, I don’t know shit about crack.”
Melody scowled. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Seriously. Powder, that’s where it’s at. This one dude from the suburbs, he drives in and gets it for his wife. Or he says it’s for his wife anyway.” Marcus dumped a baggie onto the coffee table and chopped out a line. “You want some, Jack?”
I shook my head. “Coffee is more my speed.” I looked over at Melody. “So you’re moving up the ladder?”
Melody fiddled with the fringe on her purse. “I’m tired of all the penny-ante bullshit. We’re expanding the operation.” Melody grinned. “We got a lot of shit to move and we’re gonna move that shit fast. Get the money and go.”
Marcus nodded. “That’s what I’m talking about. See, I’m saying we wholesale the shit. What the fuck, right? Retail or wholesale, it’s all pure profit to us.”
I frowned. Melody shook her head. “See, that’s your problem right there. When faced with an easy hundred grand or a hard million, you choose the easy hundred.”
“I’m just saying, there must be guys around who would take that shit off our hands in a heartbeat. Someone with connections we don’t have.”
Melody snorted. “Connections? You’ve got connections. I’ve got connections. I’ve got the market cornered in that fucking club. When I started, there were all kinds of skeezy guys slinging bullshit bags of baking soda and baby laxatives. I came in there with your shit, and within two weeks the girls were practically eating out of my hand.” Melody scowled. “But you know the bosses have to get their beaks wet. I got to kick back some cash to the managers to have them look the other way. They walk off with the profits while I’m in there busting my ass doing all the work.”
I nodded. “Capitalism in action.”
“Yeah, well, I got no problem with capitalism. We’ve just got to get ourselves higher up the food chain.”
I drank my beer. “You do that, you’re going to start bumping into the competition. What happened to those skeezy guys at the club?”
Melody shrugged. “I kicked up more to the bosses. They made the other dealers go away. But I hear ya, Jack. We need some muscle.” Melody grinned at me. She raised her eyebrows. “That’s where you come in.”
I shook my head. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”
; Melody gave my arm a swat. “What the fuck, man? You allergic to money? We got a good thing going here.”
“How does it play out now? Like if someone doesn’t pay. What do you do?”
Melody nodded. “We’ve dealt with deadbeats before. The way it works is, Marcus and I go over to their houses with baseball bats. And then we go shopping. We take DVDs, CDs, clothes … whatever we want. Last time I got an Hermès scarf.”
“A scarf, huh?” I kept watching Melody’s eyes. “Have you ever used the bats?”
Marcus shook his head. “It’s an intimidation thing.”
“No one’s ever called your bluff?”
Melody scowled. “It’s not a fucking bluff. They don’t pay, they WILL get the bat.” She stared over at Marcus. “Okay? Rock that shit up!”
“What do I know about running a stash house?”
Melody frowned. “Man, I don’t know. Make the shit and then stash it. C’mon! Stop making it harder than it has to be. I’ve got to go to work. Just get it done!” Melody stood up and flounced down the hall. We heard the front door slam.
Marcus looked over at me. “Look man, we could really use some help here. I mean, I sell to friends, co-workers, people I trust — but we’re talking an eight ball here, an eight ball there.” Marcus rubbed the side of his head. “But this shit, I mean, damn. It’s going to take us a million years to move that kind of weight.”
I stared at Marcus. “What did you mean, ‘either way it’s pure profit?’”
Marcus squirmed. “You know, I’m just saying, either way we make money.”
“Pure profit means you didn’t pay for it.”
“Shit, man.”
“Melody ripped it off.” I didn’t want to believe it but I knew it was true. “She stole her dad’s coke.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“She knew where her dad hid the shit and she went right for it. You were there, too, weren’t you?”
Marcus didn’t say anything.
“You need to give the shit back.”
He shook his head. “We can’t. You heard Melody. She’s got big plans.”
I kept staring at Marcus. “A lot of people are going to get hurt behind this shit. Give it to me and I’ll give it back to Walter, no questions asked.”
Marcus chuckled. “You think I’m dumb, huh?”
“I don’t think you’re dumb.”
“Yeah, right. I’m not gonna let you just waltz off with our coke, man.”
“But it’s not your coke. Melody ripped it off. She stole it from her father, who got it from a man named Fisher. Fisher works for a man named Anton. These guys are bad news, Marcus. You think they’re going to let you walk off into the sunset with their shit? Hell, no. They’re going to come looking for it.”
Marcus looked worried. “For real?”
“As real as it gets.” I shrugged. “But why are you worried? You got bats, right?”
CHAPTER 25
I left Melody’s house and hopped on the Queen streetcar heading west, back toward Chinatown. At Queen and Spadina, I decided to walk the rest of the way to my office. It was a beautiful day.
A man in a long white butcher’s coat was stacking bok choy in a big pile outside one of the big Chinatown markets. An inch of ash dangled from his cigarette. I watched for a while to see if the ash would fall onto the vegetables, but it never did.
I knew I would have to confront Melody about her dad’s stolen coke. She and Marcus were in way over their heads. Walter might let his daughter slide, but Marcus was a different story. Plus, there was no telling what Fisher would do.
Speak of the devil. Fisher was parked outside my office, lounging back on his chromed-out Harley. The big biker was wearing a black leather jacket and mirrored sunglasses. He grinned when he saw me coming. “She’s up there, isn’t she?”
“She’s still pretty shaken up. She doesn’t want to talk.”
Fisher nodded slowly. “That’s cool. I don’t want to, you know, disturb her. But you and I, we had a deal.”
“Deal’s still on. Anton will get his money.”
“He wants her to play, Jack.”
I shook my head. “That part’s done.”
Fisher sighed and looked off into traffic. I could see the reflections of cars in his sunglasses. “He’s not going to be happy about that.”
“Just keep reminding him about the money. He still makes a profit on the whole deal.” I flexed my fingers. I imagined my hand closing around Anton’s throat.
Fisher grinned. “He does like money.” He slapped the Harley’s handlebars. “All right, man, I’ll run it up the flagpole and we’ll see who salutes.”
Cassandra was sitting on my couch eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The fact that she was eating was a good sign. “You know what you need in here? A TV.”
I shook my head. “Nah.”
“You don’t have to hook up cable. Just a TV and a DVD player, like back at the safe house.”
I smiled. “Did you miss the end of The River Wild? Turns out, the river did it.”
Cassandra gave my arm a playful swat. “Hey, man! Spoilers!”
I sat down on the couch next to her. She smelled like cinnamon. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
Cassie smiled. “It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep can do.”
Brave words from a brave woman. I knew it would take more than a good night’s rest to recover from Johnny Rapoli.
Cassandra looked over at me. “I need a game.”
“You feeling lucky?”
Cassandra stared directly at me. “We make our own luck. I believe hard work pays off. I believe in the odds. The numbers don’t lie. You play the odds right enough times and eventually you win. It’s as simple as that.”
I didn’t say, If it’s as simple as that, then why are you broke? Instead, I said, “Hard work should pay off, but it doesn’t always. There are billions of people all around the world who struggle. They work hard from sunrise to sundown, digging ditches, planting crops, taking care of children. Maybe they earn enough to eat, maybe not. Meanwhile, there other people straight-up lounging around in palaces made of gold. You think the folks in the palace work harder than the people in the field? Hell no.”
Cassandra frowned. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the game is rigged. It’s nice when hard work pays off, but it’s not a given. Plenty of people work hard, get nothing, and then they die. Other people are born with everything and they die still clutching sacks of cash. That’s just the way it is. The scales are crooked and always have been.” I shrugged. “Maybe that’ll change someday. I don’t know.”
Cassandra exhaled. “Goddamn, Jack, you’re a real downer sometimes, you know?” She pulled a pack of cards from her purse and shook them into her palm. They flowed from her left hand to her right like a waterfall. “I’m ready to play. I was born ready. You know me, Jack. I love the hustle. Those backroom games, man … it’s like all of life boiled right down to its essence — risk, reward, danger — it’s all right there.”
I grinned. “Plus you like punishing those guys when they underestimate you. They call you ‘baby’ and ‘darling’ and then you flip the cards and take their shit.”
Cassandra wrinkled her nose. “That’s a nice bonus, but that’s not what it’s about. I want to be the best. Besides, what else would I do? Go back to school?”
“Sure. Why not? Nothing’s written in stone. No one stamped Professional Gambler on your forehead when you were a baby. It’s always possible to change your life.”
Cassandra was silent for a minute. “Do you really believe that?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
CHAPTER 26
In my business, you make enemies. That’s just the nature of the beast. If you’re lucky, you know who your enemies are.
I wasn’t sure about Freddy. Freddy was old school. He had been with The Old Man’s organization until The Old Man bought the farm. That wa
s nine years ago. Nowadays, the word was Freddy had retired. Now he was just a simple café owner, hanging out in his little social club on the Danforth, sipping espresso and watching soccer with his regulars. I didn’t buy it for a second.
I took the subway over the Don Valley to Coxwell Station. Then I walked east along the Danforth to Freddy’s bar. The place was tiny. Just six stools at the bar, three tables in the back, and one at the front. There were also three chairs outside on the sidewalk, pushed against the wall. That’s where the smokers sat. The TV on the wall over the bar blared and the bottles glittered. A man with a walrus moustache and a grey newsboy cap sat behind the bar near the front window, sipping espresso.
“Jack!” Freddy beamed and waddled out from behind the bar. He had always been big, but now he was obese. It suited him, though. It was hard to picture him any other way.
“Freddy.”
We embraced.
He patted my back and beamed. “I haven’t seen you since that thing with Tommy.”
Tommy was gone and everybody knew it. At first there was talk that he had scraped together some cash and skipped town, heading off to Costa Rica or Aruba or someplace else where it wasn’t winter six months of the year. But as the months went on and no one got any calls or postcards, people started to catch on to the fact that Tommy wasn’t coming back.
“What do you hear?”
Freddy picked up his espresso from the bar. “Come with me.” The man eased his bulk toward one of the tables at the back. He called over his shoulder, “You want a drink?”
“Yeah.”
Freddy stomped behind the bar and poured us both a vodka. He handed mine to me and then went back to his perch.
Freddy and I drank. The TV was turned to CablePulse 24. I used to sit and drink by myself in my old apartment and stare at this channel. There was always all kinds of info on the screen: traffic feeds, weather reports, stock tickers scrolling by. Life was happening all over the city, all at once.
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