by S. G. Browne
Elwood looks at Barry, pushes his sunglasses down and looks over the top of them, and says, “Now that you mention it . . .”
Barry points his finger at Elwood and says, “Not another word from you.” Then he turns his finger toward me. “What kind of deal?”
I don’t know if what I’m about to propose will make a difference, if it will help to fix anything, but at this point, unless I decide to poach good luck from a ten-year-old kid with an attitude problem, I don’t really have any other options. Or at least if I do, I haven’t figured them out yet.
“I want you to leave my sister alone,” I say.
A few days ago, even a few hours ago, I would have asked for immunity. For a new identity. For a house on Martha’s Vineyard and season tickets at Fenway. Maybe even a lifetime membership to the Playboy Mansion. Actually, let’s put that one at the top of the list. But all I want now is to try to make things right before they get any more wrong.
“You’re not exactly in a position to name your price,” says Barry.
“Neither are you.”
I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s what comes out of my mouth. Another side effect of poaching top-grade soft is that it makes you say stupid things with complete confidence.
Like politicians. Or professional athletes accused of taking steroids.
We emerge from the Broadway Tunnel into Chinatown and come to a stop at Powell Street, which ascends toward Nob Hill on one side and drops down to Fisherman’s Wharf on the other. Barry sits across from me staring, waiting for me to blink first. But I’m not going to let him win this one. I can’t afford to.
“Your sister is my leverage,” says Barry.
“Does that mean she’s the fulcrum?” I ask. “Or is she the lever and I’m the fulcrum? Or is one of us the mechanical force? And does that make you the load?”
I never was good at physics.
“I was thinking more along the lines of business operations,” says Barry.
“I don’t know about that. But I’m still thinking you’re the load. A really big load.”
Next to me, Elwood smirks.
“Think of yourself as the equity and your sister as the debt that has to be paid off to supplement my investment in you,” says Barry, ignoring my comment. “She’s what I’m using to maximize my gain.”
“Well, the way I see it, without my help, you’re going to have a hard time building any equity. So if you keep leaning on your debt, you’re not likely to get a return on your investment. Which means eventually you’ll end up bankrupt.” I don’t know if that’s right, but it sounds good to me. “Or another way to look at it is that my sister isn’t any good to you as bargaining power if dangling her safety over me just pisses me off.”
Next to me, Elwood fights to suppress a smile.
“You’re pushing your luck,” says Barry.
“I’ve been pushing luck most of my life. Why stop now?”
The sedan crosses Columbus and pulls over in front of the Garden of Eden strip club, across from the Hungry I Club, the Roaring 20’s, and Big Al’s Adult Super Store. If this is where they’re kicking me out, it’s a big improvement over Grace Cathedral. Not exactly the Playboy Mansion, but I’ll take it.
“Let’s say I agree,” says Barry. “What are you going to do for me?”
Somewhere in the back of my head, my father is telling me I don’t have the balls to behave like a real man. To accept my responsibilities. To suck it up and take what’s coming to me.
“I’ll agree to do whatever you want.” I never was good at negotiations. “You want me to poach for the CIA or the FBI or whoever the hell you are? I’ll do it. You want to use me as a scapegoat for whatever you have on Tommy Wong? Go ahead. You want me to tell you about the secrets of the poaching trade? I’m your man. Just back off my sister.”
Nothing like agreeing to give up everything in order to try to win back your self-respect.
Barry stares at me across his pore-gasping, Transamerica Pyramid of a nose, his eyes blinking once, then twice, so slow it’s like his eyelids are low on batteries.
“We’re going to give this one more try,” he says, pulling out a pen and a white business card and writing something down on the back of it. “You think you can follow directions this time?”
“I don’t know. You think you can learn how to say please and thank you?”
Elwood coughs once into his fist in a valiant effort to cover up a brief explosion of laughter.
“Go to this address,” says Barry, handing me the card and giving Elwood a glance of disapproval. “Show this card and try not to say anything stupid.”
That’s like asking a fish to try not to swim.
On one side of the business card is a handwritten address for 636 O’Farrell, and under that is what looks like someone’s license plate: 2OZ LGH.
Two ounces low-grade hard.
While your run-of-the-mill bad luck can be offset with a healthy dose of top-grade soft, only an infusion of Pure can remedy the effects of low-grade hard. So despite the rush of the top-grade soft from Donna Baker flowing through my system right now, this doesn’t exactly sound like my idea of a fun time.
“Just make sure you don’t lose that,” says Barry, pointing to the card.
I flip the card over. On the other side are just three black letters, raised and embossed on the white background: BGS.
I don’t know if they’re the initials for Barry’s real name or if they’re an abbreviation for whatever government agency he works for or if they stand for Bozo Goon Squad, but he still hasn’t given me an answer.
“What about my sister?”
“I’m not in a position to make any deals. But just deliver the bad luck to Tommy Wong and you won’t have any problems.”
“You didn’t say please.”
“Pretty please. With sugar on top. Whipped cream and a fucking cherry, too. Now get out.”
Then Elwood is opening the door and getting out of the sedan.
I step out onto Broadway, the sound of traffic and tourists and the smell of exhaust and sweat assaulting my heightened senses. I put on my sunglasses to block out the brightness of the colors and try to breathe through my mouth as Elwood slides back into the sedan. Before he can close the door, I lean over and look past him into the backseat at Barry.
“Hey, how’s this for an analogy? Asking me why I’m poaching luck is like asking a federal agent who looks like Barry Manilow why he’s such a complete dickhead.”
Elwood smirks, then regains his impassive expression and closes the door. The sedan drives off, turns right on Kearny, and disappears around the corner, leaving me standing on the sidewalk in front of the Garden of Eden.
Some Italian huckster with slicked-back hair and a cheesy mustache is trying to talk me into coming inside to check out the merchandise. I have to admit, getting a lap dance while high on top-grade soft is tempting. You haven’t experienced physical pleasure until you’ve indulged in carnal delights while riding the Softland Express. Yet another reason why so many poachers end up addicted to their product. It’s like discovering the joys of first class and realizing you can never go back to coach.
So here I am, being tempted by the fruits of the human flesh in front of a strip club named after the paradise that man was allegedly thrown out of for eating the apple from the tree of knowledge, and I can’t help thinking about the symbolism of my getting dropped off here.
As far as I’m concerned, Christian mythology is just that. Myths. Stories. Fables. Parables and metaphors designed to teach lessons about what it means to be human. And the lesson of the original sin is the curse of knowledge.
When that first apple was eaten, we absorbed its nutrients and it became a part of us. All of that knowledge of what we were capable of. The good and the evil. Once we’ve eaten from it, we can’t uneat it. We have to live with the consequences of what we’ve done. There’s no turning back.
Sounds familiar.
Personally, I’ve nev
er subscribed to any kind of religion because, well, when you have the ability to manipulate luck and influence the lives of every person you touch, you tend to develop a belief in yourself as some kind of superior being. It just goes with the job description. You can’t do what I do and think of yourself as normal. I exist in a different universe. The rules don’t apply to me.
You can see why it’s easy for me to get into trouble.
No one wants to confront his own shortcomings. Least of all me. I hate taking responsibility for my own actions. It’s so much easier to pretend that the things I do have no consequences or ramifications.
Which is how I got into this mess in the first place.
With the late afternoon slipping into early evening, I don’t have time to get a lap dance or stand here philosophizing about the moral implications of my lifestyle choices. I need to catch a cab to the Tenderloin and pick up some bad luck so I can prevent my sister from becoming collateral damage for my own hubris and desire.
I have a busy schedule.
I flag down a cab heading toward the Embarcadero and climb in the back.
“Where to?” says the driver.
I pull out the card Barry Manilow gave me, but before I tell the driver to take me to the address on O’Farrell I need to find out if the woman I thought I saw a few minutes ago was Scooter Girl, and if it was, I’ve got a few questions I want to have answered first.
“Shanghai Kelly’s on Broadway and Polk,” I say. “And if you flip a bitch and make that green light, there’s a hundred in it for you.”
The driver pulls away from the curb and makes a quick U-turn that gets us through the light before it turns red. I pull a hundred from my wallet and drop it on the front seat.
“Thanks,” I say. “By the way, you’re not vegan, are you?”
Another thing about high-quality good luck is that it helps you to make green lights all the way to your destination, so you get to Shanghai Kelly’s just in time to see who you thought was Scooter Girl, and who turns out to be Scooter Girl, get on her scooter and drive off in the direction from which you just came.
“Follow that scooter,” I say to the cabdriver.
“We’re not really supposed to do that.”
I throw another hundred on the front seat next to him. “How about now?”
After scooping up the cash, the cabdriver flips an illegal U-turn on a yellow light and heads back toward Chinatown. As we’re driving down Broadway again toward the tunnel after Scooter Girl, my phone rings.
“Nick Monday,” I say.
“What the fuck happened to you?” says Tommy.
“You’ll have to be a little more specific there, Tommy. It’s been one of those days.”
“I got a call from your driver. He told me some men grabbed you in Pacific Heights.”
“The driver’s vegan. And he’s a douche bag. Don’t believe a thing he says.”
“I believe who I want to believe,” says Tommy. “Where’s the product?”
“It’s in a safe place,” I lie. Other than Donna Baker, I didn’t poach from any of the marks on the list.
“Have you deposited it at the bank?”
“It’s on my list of Things to Do.”
“Why haven’t you made a deposit?”
What, where, why? It’s always questions with these Mafia kingpins. And it’s never anything like How are you? or What’s up with the ladies? or Did you enjoy the fruit basket?
A little appreciation goes a long way.
“I wanted to complete the list first,” I say.
“You haven’t completed the list?”
“Still working on it,” I say as the cab enters the Broadway Tunnel. “By the way, can you e-mail a copy of the list to me?”
“A copy? Why do you need a copy?”
“Just as a backup.”
In the brief moment of silence on the other end, Tommy is probably realizing that I don’t have the list. Either that or I lost reception.
“You lost the list?”
“It’s in the car with the douche bag,” I say. Which is the truth. It’s just in a different car. With a different douche bag.
“Where are you?”
“In a cab. On my way to North Beach.”
“I don’t like this, Monday.”
“I don’t like this Monday, either. Or is this Tuesday? What day is this anyway? I’ve lost track.”
“You better make a deposit before the bank closes if you want to stay out of my doghouse,” says Tommy.
And by doghouse he means body bag.
“Since when do I have a deadline?”
“Since now.”
Then he hangs up.
It’s already after five. I don’t have time to properly process Donna Baker’s luck out of my system and make it to the Wells Fargo on Market before six o’clock. My only other option is to give Tommy the stash of luck in my refrigerator and hope he doesn’t know the difference.
Up ahead of us, Scooter Girl is out of the Broadway Tunnel and turning left onto Powell. I throw another hundred on the front seat for the cabdriver to beat the light.
My phone rings again.
“Nick Monday.”
“Mr. Monday, this is Tuesday Knight.”
“Which one?”
After a slight pause she says, “I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean.”
It’s the first Tuesday. The fake one with real breasts. At least they looked real. But I’m not discriminating when it comes to breast implants. If it’s a mammary gland, I’m a fan.
“Never mind,” I say. “I’m just having trouble keeping track of the days.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“That’s okay. Neither do I.”
Scooter Girl turns right a block ahead of us. When the cab pulls up to the stop sign at the corner of Powell and Green ten seconds later, Scooter Girl is getting off her scooter in front of the Green Street Mortuary.
Even the symbolism isn’t working in my favor.
“What can I do for you, Miss Knight?”
“I wanted to talk to you about my father.”
And I’m thinking, that makes two of us. Instead I say, “I’m all ears.”
Half a block down from us, Scooter Girl is locking up her helmet and fluffing up her hair.
“I was hoping we could meet,” says Tuesday.
“Sure. My schedule’s wide-open.”
I don’t know why I say it. I don’t have time to meet with a woman who’s apparently pretending to be Tuesday Knight. I’m following Scooter Girl. I have bad luck to pick up and good luck to deliver. Not to mention that I should really transfer the good luck out of my system before I end up addicted to it. Or pissing it into a urinal.
I can feel the two cappuccinos I’ve had since my last luck transfer already starting to bully my bladder into submission.
“Why don’t we meet at my office in forty-five minutes?” I say.
That should give me enough time to get home and process Donna Baker’s good luck. I don’t know how I’m going to get to the bank in time to deposit anything into the safe-deposit box, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.
If not, then I’ll probably be back here at the Green Street Mortuary on business.
“I was thinking we could meet for a drink,” says Tuesday. “Do you know O’Reilly’s?”
I watch Scooter Girl walk across the street, toward the sidewalk tables filled with the early-evening work crowd enjoying happy hour out in front of O’Reilly’s Irish Pub.
“I know the place,” I say.
“Good,” says Tuesday. “I’ll meet you there at six.”
“Hey!” I shout as I run from the cab.
Several of the patrons out in front of O’Reilly’s turn and look my way. When Scooter Girl sees me, she walks away from the entrance and meets me in front of the alley next door.
I probably don’t have time to do this, but I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to confront her. Or ask her ou
t on a date.
“What are you doing here?” she says.
“Top secret,” I say, catching my breath. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to . . . well, you know.”
I give her my most charming smile and hope she reciprocates, but all I get is a cock of her head as she looks past me and sees my cab waiting at the corner.
“Were you following me?”
“No. I just happened to be in the neighborhood and saw you.”
“Uh-huh. What do you want?” She’s still angry about lunch.
“I’m sorry about lunch. I was out of line. It’s none of my business who you work for.”
“I told you, I don’t work for anyone.”
“Okay,” I say. “It doesn’t matter. You’re a poacher. I’m a poacher. We should be on the same side. Let me take you out to dinner so we can talk.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Come on. It’s just dinner. It’s not like I’m going to kidnap you.”
She smiles. “Look, Nick. In spite of everything, you’re kind of cute, and if the circumstances were different, I might consider having dinner with you, but it would never work out between us.”
“Why not?”
“Let’s just say it’s complicated and leave it at that.”
“But—”
“Good-bye, Nick,” she says, waving her fingers at me. She doesn’t move but just stands there, looking at me, her head cocked to one side.
I finally get the hint and walk back to my cab, feeling like the high school nerd who just asked out the prom queen and got totally rejected. When I slide into the backseat of the cab, Scooter Girl is walking into O’Reilly’s.
I consider going after her to find out what she meant by it’s complicated. And what was that in spite of everything crap? But I can’t afford to miss getting to the bank before it closes, not if I want to avoid ending up at the Green Street Mortuary, so I give the cabdriver my address and throw another hundred on the front seat.
Less than ten minutes later I’m at my apartment, where I fill another backpack with the bottles of low- and medium-grade good luck from my refrigerator, though I leave one bottle of lemonade because Tommy only had two on his list. Then I release Donna Baker’s luck into a plastic water bottle half-filled with a mixture of water, ice, and sugar. The reason for the water is to dilute the urine. The reason for the ice is to keep the luck from overheating. And the reason for the sugar is to make the mixture sweeter going back down.