by S. G. Browne
“No shit?” He sits up and drops his hands. “Forizzle?”
“Forizzle,” I say, though I’m still not really sure what that means. But Bow Wow does and apparently I’ve spoken well.
His face breaks open into the Grand Canyon of smiles and his eyes tear up. For a minute I think he’s going to run around the desk and give me a hug, but then he blinks back the tears and sucks it up. “I’d be honored, Holmes.”
At first I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea to make the offer to Doug, considering that I’d poached his good luck. But after watching him survive getting shot in the chest, I have a feeling he’s going to be just fine.
Sure, it goes against everything I’ve always believed in, but I’m beginning to think that maybe there’s more to good luck than just being born with it.
While waiting for Doug to show up, I arranged to have the rent on the office covered for the next two months, and I did the same with the phone Thug One took from me. I don’t know where the phone is and I don’t really care. After two months the service will be deactivated and Nick Monday will cease to exist. But for the next eight weeks, any phone calls for Nick Monday, private investigator, will continue to be received.
“I’ve set it up to have all of my calls forwarded to you,” I say. “Just let them know you’re handling things while I’m gone and give them your phone number so they can call you directly.”
“But what if I don’t know what to do, Holmes?”
“I’ll check in every now and then to see how things are going. But don’t worry about it, Bow Wow. You’ll do great.”
Although the first part is a lie, I have no doubts that Doug can probably run his investigations better than I did. Though he might want to cut down on the gangsta vernacular.
I show him the files in the cabinet and on the laptop, which has all of the information about any legitimate jobs I’ve taken over the past couple of years. I took any personal files out of the cabinet and dumped all of my non-business-related information off the laptop and onto a flash drive this morning before Doug showed up.
“I think that’s about it,” I say. “Any questions?”
“When are you leaving, Holmes?”
“Today. In an hour. Which is something else I need to talk to you about.”
“You need a ride to the airport?”
“Not exactly.”
Fifteen minutes later, Doug has forty thousand in cash and the keys to my office and I have the keys to one screaming-lemon-colored Prius.
With the forty grand I figure Doug can get another car and either pay the rent for another six months or open up his own business in a new location. I know he’ll be upset once he realizes I’m not coming back, but I hope he’ll forgive me.
I drive to my apartment, pack up my duffel bag and suitcase and ice chest, and head out of San Francisco a little more than an hour before my scheduled meeting with Barry Manilow. With any luck, the Albino has already made his delivery and Barry won’t be bothering me anytime soon.
I plug in my smartphone, the one I use for poaching, and check the navigation, which tells me I should reach my destination in just over four hours. I’m not expecting to get any business calls, and wouldn’t answer them if I did, but I need a phone and it’s billed to an alias that no one can trace back to me.
I drive north on 101 across the Golden Gate Bridge, then I cut across Highway 37 to Interstate 80 and head east until I reach a Motel 6 on the outskirts of Reno just past three in the afternoon, where I book a room and then grab some fast food before I head to the casinos to improve my financial situation.
I come back a few hours later with an additional eight thousand dollars.
I spend the next day bouncing from casino to casino, winning a few hundred on the slots and a thousand at blackjack before moving on to another game or another casino. I haven’t had this kind of luck since Tucson, and I wonder if I somehow managed to poach some of Jimmy’s good luck. Maybe the wax and paper coating on my right hand didn’t prevent the transfer of luck. Maybe it just acted as a filter, allowing something to trickle through.
Or maybe it’s just that for the first time in three years, I’m free of the bad luck I’ve been carrying around.
Except I don’t believe that’s the only reason. But the only other explanation for my change of good fortune goes against everything I’ve ever known about good luck, everything I’ve ever learned. It challenges me to believe that good luck can be manufactured by actions and conduct in addition to existing in someone’s genetic code. It challenges me to believe that there’s an additional answer for how good luck works. And right now, the only challenge I’m interested in is making as much money as possible in a short time.
With more than a dozen casinos and saloons in downtown Reno, plus another two dozen casinos in the outskirts and in Sparks, I can walk away with more than thirty grand a day without arousing anyone’s suspicion. But it’s just a short-term solution. A quick payday to help build up some cash flow. I can’t stick around for much longer than a few days. Places like Reno and Vegas are ripe for luck poachers, so it’s only a matter of time before someone decides to come looking for me here.
But that’s not the only problem with sticking around. I can’t keep winning and expect to get away with it. Success makes people suspicious, especially when your success means walking away with something that belongs to them. You can spread your winnings out among the casinos, but you can only leave with the house’s money so often before someone takes notice.
Plus, with an ability like mine, it’s hard to forget what you’re capable of doing. It’s like breathing or sleeping or getting an erection. It just happens. It’s a natural part of who I am. I don’t know how Mandy manages to avoid the temptation. Though it would probably be easier if I weren’t in a town that attracts luck the way a singles bar attracts desperation.
Every day I see people hitting progressive jackpots and having winning streaks at the craps table or roulette, dozens of marks with medium-grade good luck and top-grade soft, and I struggle with my desire to poach their luck. It’s like being in Disneyland and not being able to go on any of the rides.
So three days after stopping in Reno and with just over a hundred grand in my pockets, I pack up everything and head east on Interstate 80 toward Utah. I’m not sure where I’m going. Maybe Colorado Springs or Santa Fe or Austin. Or maybe New Orleans. I’ve always wanted to live there. Chances are it’s already claimed by another poacher, but I’m thinking I can start up my private investigator services again, try to go straight.
I know it’s a long shot, but after everything I helped to ruin in San Francisco, I’d like to think I could manage to create something good somewhere else. Balance out the cosmos. The karma. Whatever. I owe it to Mandy and Jimmy and Doug to give it a try. Hell, I owe it to myself.
All poachers are adept at changing who we are. At adapting and letting go. Every new identity is just a suit you wear, a persona to exist in for a couple of years, maybe five if you’re lucky, until it’s time to move on to the next one.
Abandon your life. Become someone else. Repeat.
I’m hoping this time I can put on a new suit that fits the new me. Stop living from city to city and identity to identity and find something that matters. Find someone who matters. Build a life that actually has some meaning beyond what’s-in-it-for-me? Shed the skin of my former self and discover that there’s more to life than just being a luck poacher.
My father would probably laugh in my face. Go all Popeye on me and tell me that I am what I am and that’s all that I am. That I’ll never be anything more than a waste of carbon. A disappointment. Maybe not so common, but still a thief.
If nothing else, I want to prove my father wrong. Show that I can change. That I can live up to my potential without the benefit of my genetic disposition. But when you’re a luck poacher, your old life has a way of finding you and tempting you and reminding you that starting over isn’t as simple as it sounds.
; The truth is, you can’t give up who you are that easily.
The tires hum on the asphalt, the past falls away in the rearview mirror, I speed down the highway toward a new future, and my phone starts to ring.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Over the past several years I’ve been fortunate to cross paths with numerous people to whom I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude.
Writers and editors. Reviewers and booksellers. Community relations managers and event coordinators and owners at dozens of bookstores. And last, but certainly not least, all of my readers. You’re the reason I’m able to keep doing this.
While it would be impossible to list everyone here who has influenced and inspired and supported me, just know that my life is richer for having you in it. I hope you know who you are.
Now, on to the usual suspects . . .
Michelle Brower, who likes what I write and helps me to navigate the waters and who gave this book the second half of its title. I’m lucky to have you in my world.
Kara Cesare and Ed Schlesinger, who believed in me and who helped to fine-tune the manuscript and brought out the best in it. Drinks are on me.
Everyone at Gallery Books and Simon & Schuster who provided their creativity and their talents and who let me share my thoughts. Thank you for listening.
Cliff Brooks, Ian Dudley, Heather Liston, Shannon Page, and Keith White, who beat me up over the first drafts and never pulled any punches. I still have the bruises.
And finally to my friends and my family, who have always been my biggest fans and have been there for me whenever I needed you. Thanks for the love.
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