Carve the Heart

by A. G. Pasquella

  I tilted my chin toward the trailer door. “You want a beer?”

  “Nah, no thanks.” Marcus smiled. “I quit drinking a few years back. Figured I drank up my lifetime supply. Back before I quit, I went to the doctor about these headaches I was having and he ran all kinds of tests. My head was fine, but the tests flagged my liver. Doc said my liver was ‘high functioning.’ I thought, shit, sounds good to me. Like my liver was an honours student or something. But nah, turns out high functioning is bad, at least when it comes to livers. It was working overtime, struggling to flush out the toxins from all that booze I was guzzling.” He shrugged. “I miss it sometimes. Drinking can be fun, you know? You go out, you see friends, you meet people, random shit happens. One minute you’re sitting in the bar with a beer in your hand and then BAM! Next thing you know you’re at some loft party and the music is bumping and there’s a clown show going on with trapezes and shit, and then the girl sitting next to you whips off her top.” Marcus chuckled. “That’s what I miss the most, the randomness.”

  “Being on the run from drug-dealing bikers is pretty random.”

  Marcus looked down at the ground. “Yeah,” he muttered.

  I wanted to stand up, walk into the trailer, and grab an ice-cold beer from the fridge, but I didn’t want to drink in front of Marcus. “How’d you meet Melody?”

  Marcus smiled. “We went to high school together. We were lab partners in biology. We were dissecting rats and she made a cat’s cradle out of the rat intestines. I thought that shit was hilarious. So out there, you know?” He grinned, remembering. “That’s who she was back then — dyed black hair, black tights, black Doc Martens. She had a faded jean jacket with all kinds of buttons and shit on it. I remember she had one button that was a swastika with a red slash drawn across it. I thought that was kind of silly at the time. Like, of course you’re against Nazis, who the fuck isn’t against Nazis?”

  Marcus got quiet for a minute. “These days, I don’t know, man. Maybe I was naive. Shit, maybe I’m still naive.” He glanced over at me. “I’m no coke kingpin, you know? I used to party a lot, back in the day. I do a few lines now and then, but nothing too serious. Some people, man, they do one line and BAM, that’s it, now they’re fiending for that shit forever. Me, I can take it or leave it. Melody …” Marcus ducked his head. “Well, let’s just say I didn’t flag it as a problem at the time. It was her idea to start dealing, but she didn’t phrase it like that. The way she pitched it, it was all about saving money. The more you buy, the cheaper per gram it gets. We were used to buying a gram or two and blowing through it all in a night, but then we started buying eight balls and selling off a gram here and a gram there … then we’d take the profit and roll it over, turn it into more coke and do the whole thing again.” Marcus nodded. “As long as you don’t hoover up the profits yourself, you can start stacking cash pretty damn quick.”

  “Don’t get high on your own supply.”

  “You got it.” Marcus laughed. “Thing is, everybody does. At first, that was the whole point. We sold shit to bring down the cost of our own shit. Then Melody started getting ambitious, talking about how she could get more shit from some dude she knew at the club. At the time I just kind of laughed it off, you know. Like, ‘Whatever, Melody. You’re trippin’. ’ But then she showed up to my dorm room one day with a full ounce and I knew she was serious. Problem was, that ounce had been stepped on so many times it was like a marching band had trampled that shit.” Marcus shrugged. “We bagged it up and sold it anyway. Then Melody started looking around for a new connect. I thought maybe she could ask her dad, you know? He was this badass biker, no doubt he had all kinds of connections. But Melody just looked at me like I was crazy. Apparently her dad was more on the muscle side, you know? He knew people who knew people, but Melody didn’t want her dad to be all up in her business.” Marcus grinned. “Sometimes there’s Daddy-Daughter dealers, but that shit’s pretty rare. Most parents, you know, even if they’re dealing, they want to keep their kids far away from that shit. And likewise if the kid is dealing, they don’t want their parents poking around and finding their stash in the closet underneath the comic books or whatever.” Marcus shrugged. “Shit, I figured it was worth a try.”

  “Well … you’re in it now.”

  “Yeah.” Marcus watched the wind ripple through the grass. “I’m not a drug dealer, man. I was just selling shit to put myself through school. Melody, though … man, Melody’s trying to get me to go to places I don’t want to go.”

  “Did you help her steal Walter’s coke?”

  Marcus shook his head. “That was all her. She waited until her dad passed out and then she just walked off with the shit. Busted up a few commemorative plates and shit to make it look like a real robbery.”

  “Commemorative plates?”

  “I don’t know, man, collectables and shit. Walter’s big into Star Trek.”

  “Then Melody tried to put the blame on Fisher.”

  Marcus nodded. “Yeah. Or me.”

  Marcus and I were quiet for a minute. Finally I cleared my throat. “You’ve been doing some thinking.”

  “Hell yeah, I’ve been thinking. Don’t get me wrong, Melody’s a fun person. Hell, you know that. Problem is, she’s all about fun. Sooner or later, that shit’s gonna catch up with her. What happens when the fun stops? She’s not exactly the responsible type. No offence.”

  “I’m not offended.”

  “I mean, I know you guys are tight.”

  “It’s like you said, we’re just having fun.”

  We were quiet again. Farm machinery rumbled in the distance. A flock of birds flew by. “We never hooked up,” Marcus said, “in case you were wondering.”

  “None of my business.”

  “She’s not my type.” Marcus squinted. “I don’t think I have a type.”

  “Like I said. None of my business.”

  “We’ve been friends a long time. That’s it.”

  “Friends and business partners.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And now you’re having second thoughts.”

  Marcus chuckled, but there was no humour there. “Second thoughts, third thoughts, fourth thoughts.” He looked at me. “I want out, Jack.”

  I looked over at Marcus. “Well,” I said, “maybe I can help with that.” I handed Marcus a shopping bag. “There’s some cold cuts, bread, cheese, mustard. A couple of apples. I got the power turned on yesterday but it’s a mess in there.” I reached into the shopping bag and pulled out a box of garbage bags. “I’ve got cleaning supplies, too. Rubber gloves and shit. You help me get the place in shape and you can stay for as long as you want. There’s no cable TV, but there are some books. Some magazines, too, but they’re about nine years out of date.”

  “What’s the Wi-Fi password?”

  I just stared at him.

  He looked down at his shoes. “Never mind,” he muttered.

  CHAPTER 35

  I listened to classical music as I drove back to the city. I don’t often listen to classical. All those screeching violins set my teeth on edge. Give me some nice Max Roach and Clifford Brown any day. This stuff was okay, though. It was gentle, quiet, and soothing. I spun the wheel and headed for the Starlight.

  The club lights made everything look purple. Melody sashayed up to me in a white push-up bra and a lacy white thong. She spread a silk scarf over a bar stool and sat down next to me. Her mouth was smiling but her eyes were hard. “Where’s Marcus?”

  “He’s safe.”

  “Yeah, but where —”

  “Maybe better if you don’t know.” I signalled to the bartender and pointed to Melody. The bartender nodded and poured out a glass of pink champagne. This was a scam. The “champagne” was nothing but ginger ale and food colouring. Champagne for my real friends; real pain for my sham friends. I slipped the bartender a twenty. The cost of doing business.

  Melody shook her head. The “champagne” bubbled in front of her, untouched. “Tha
t devious motherfucker. He’s up to something, isn’t he?”

  “He’s just trying to finish school in one piece.”

  Melody frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “It means he’s smart. He knows that someone — Fisher, your dad, maybe both — is going to come looking for that coke.”

  Melody laughed. “Oh Jesus, not this again.”

  “It’s already happened. His place was trashed. Was it Walter?”

  Melody shook her head. “My dad wouldn’t do that.”

  “Fisher, then?”

  Melody squinted. “How would Fisher know about Marcus?”

  “Has Marcus ever come to meet you here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “There you go. Fisher saw him here with you, followed him home, and tossed the joint. That means he suspects you might have the coke, too. Cut your losses, Mel. Accept the world for what it is. Wholesale the shit and be done with it.”

  “You’re asking me to give up a million bucks.”

  “I’m asking you to give up a million bucks in imaginary pretend sparkly unicorn money and walk off into the sunset with actual real-life honest-to-goodness cold hard cash. Real money, Mel.”

  Melody wrinkled her nose. “I like it when you call me Mel. It’s cute.”

  I stood up. “Think it over, okay? I’m going to be away for a few days.”

  “Yeah? Where you headed?”

  “Up north. Georgian Bay.”

  Melody smirked. “A fishing trip?”

  “No,” I said. “Business.”

  CHAPTER 36

  I carried the suitcase to the rental car. No sense piling more miles onto one of Eddie’s vehicles. In the alley behind the casino, Cassandra smiled at me. “Did you make a mix tape?” I shook my head. She frowned. “How about snacks? Crackers? Granola bars? Club soda? C’mon, Jack. Haven’t you ever been on a road trip before?”

  “Club soda?” Most of my road trips involved a trunk full of gear — knives, ropes, night-vision goggles. I was hoping this trip would be a nice change of pace.

  Cassie and I drove until the city sidewalks turned to fields. We stopped for lunch at a little café in Markdale, where we sat outside at a picnic table and ate egg salad sandwiches with tomato slices, dill pickles, and potato chips on the side. Everything was crisp, fresh, and delicious.

  We kept driving. Cassandra played with the radio until she found some classic rock. She was wearing dark sunglasses with dark frames. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun. She looked over at me and smiled. “Thanks for this, Jack.”

  “All I did was get you in. The rest is up to you.”

  Usually Freddy Johns hosted the Canada Day Game in a plush room at the Royal York Hotel. This year, though, the game had moved north. One of the guys from Hamilton, Silvio Esposito, had decamped to his private island in Georgian Bay for the summer and was too old and sick to come back to the city. As a favour, Freddy was bringing the game to him.

  We made good time. We got up to Sauble Beach in three and a half hours. From there it was another hour to Silvio’s island, but we would come back here for the night, put some distance between us and the poker players at Silvio’s.

  The car tires crunched on the white gravel of the parking lot as I pulled up in front of our rental cottage. Sauble Beach was about a ten-minute walk away. When I rented the place, I made sure there were at least two beds.

  Inside, Cassie looked around and nodded. “Looks like a cottage, all right.” She pointed to the bookshelf. “Look, they’ve got Clue.”

  I walked over and picked up the box. “The problem with these cottage games is they’re always missing a piece or two.” I opened up the box. It was completely empty. I blinked. Cassandra burst out laughing.

  I walked back outside to get Cassie’s bag from the trunk. My boots crunched in the gravel. The sun was going down. Suddenly, I froze. A man in a white suit was leaning against my car.

  “Grover.” It was strange seeing him outside of his usual context. I felt like a little kid who had just seen his teacher at the grocery store. As a kid, you think the teachers just live at the school. When you’re not there, they just get frozen in cryogenic tubes or something. When that morning bell rings, the teachers are defrosted and the day begins.

  “Howya doin’, Jack?”

  I frowned. “Did you follow me?”

  “You weren’t checking for tails.” Grover shook his head. “Sloppy, Jack, sloppy. What would The Chief say?”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m here for the fireworks.” Grover held up a knife and grinned.

  I shook my head. “You’re crazy.”

  Grover looked hurt. “Mental health is no laughing matter, Jack. There’s still a lot of stigma there.”

  “I didn’t mean …”

  Grover laughed. “Here, take this.” He offered me the knife, hilt first. “Freddy’s got to go. Do it during the fireworks, just in case he screams.”

  I grabbed the knife and tucked it into my jacket, just to get it out of sight. I stared at the little man. “What are you talking about? Freddy’s helping me, Grover.”

  “Helping you into an open grave, maybe.” Grover narrowed his eyes. “You really think he tipped you off about Mr. New York out of the goodness of his heart?”

  In my head I heard the splash Mr. New York had made as his body hit the lake. Grover shook his head. “That was a smokescreen. A ruse to make you let down your guard.”

  “You’re way off base.”

  “Am I? Think about it. Now you trust him, right? You trust him enough to come on up to a gangster’s private island.”

  A family of four crunched through the gravel on the way to their cabin. Grover turned on a brilliant smile. “Evening, folks. Beautiful tonight, isn’t it?” He waited until the family passed by, then turned back to me and hissed, “What the fuck do you think is going to happen on that island? You go out there, you’re not coming back.”

  “I’m going, Grover. Cassandra needs this.”

  “I thought you might say that.”

  “Grover … don’t do anything stupid.”

  Grover grinned. “Who, me?” The little man looked around at the trees hanging over the cottage parking lot and breathed in deep. “Man, smell that fresh country air.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Cassandra laughed, raking in a mountain of chips. There were five other guys at the table, most of them wearing track suits and gold chains: Gangster Casual. None of them looked happy.

  Freddy sidled up to me. As host he’d gone more upscale, and was wearing a white shirt and a tie and suit pants that he must’ve had made special. They were about the size of a two-person tent. “Remember in the joint, playing for cigarettes?” Freddy chuckled. “Shit, I don’t even smoke.”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t like to think about The Inside. I did my time, kept my head down, yet I still got jumped. I would’ve died if Tommy hadn’t stepped in and made the attackers back off.

  Silvio Esposito sat at the head of the table, an oxygen tank at his feet. I thought of the warning sign at Fisher’s house. Silvio’s chip stack was dwindling. He frowned, rubbery lips stretching across his toothless face. “C’mon! We playing cards, or what?”

  Freddy grinned. “You heard the man. Ante up, gents. You too, Cassandra.”

  Everyone put in their ante. The dealer dealt the cards. Half the table folded right away. The flop came up and scared off one more. It came down to just two: a man named Ricky the Rabbit and Cassandra. Cassandra grinned and flicked her finger toward the centre of the table. “All in.”

  Ricky glared at her. His cards were face down in front of him. Slowly he peeled the cards up, took a look, then let them back down. He shuffled his chips, letting them clack together. Behind him one of Freddy’s goons in an all-white track suit shifted his feet impatiently. Cassandra sat still like a statue. Her smile didn’t waver. Her ruby-red lipstick was perfect. She was dressed to the nines in a slinky black dress. Her neckline was plunging. I stared
over at the pale tops of her breasts and then forced myself to look away.

  Ricky sneered. “Call.”

  Cassie flipped her cards. “Three aces.”

  Ricky the Rabbit stood up so fast he kicked over his chair. Instantly, two of Freddy’s goons were at his side, latching on to his arms. Rabbit’s long face was twisted up with fury. The veins were popping out on his neck. He struggled, but the goons held him tight. The Rabbit’s eyes bulged. “Cheating bitch!”

  Silvio held up a hand. Instantly the room fell silent. He took a hit of oxygen and struggled to get out of his overstuffed chair. His bodyguard, Dante, grabbed his hand and helped him up. “This woman … is a guest … in my home.” Silvio stared at the Rabbit. “You’re done.” He gestured to the goons. “Get him out of here.”

  The goons glanced over at Freddy. Freddy nodded.

  “Wait!” Ricky the Rabbit regained his composure. “Silvio, wait. I’m sorry.”

  The old man grimaced. “Fuck that. You disrespect a woman in my house?” Silvio jabbed his finger toward the door. Ricky the Rabbit hung his head as the goons took him by the arms and led him out.

  The game continued. Cigars were lit and cards were flipped. The first round ended. Cassandra smiled behind her mountain of chips. Everyone stood up to stretch their legs.

  “I’m up, Jack.” Cassandra’s eyes gleamed like marbles. A few strands of hair were plastered across her forehead.

  “Time to walk away.”

  Cassandra shook her head. “That’s not how it works. We play until someone rakes in all the chips.” She smiled. “Winner take all.”

  She turned her back to me and headed back to the game.

  I felt sick. I walked over to the sideboard and poured myself a Scotch.

  Freddy Johns stepped up to me. “Gettin’ smoky in here. How about you and I take a walk?”

  Outside, the crickets were chirping.