Tumblin' Dice

by John McFetridge

  Angie said that was interesting, but not with much conviction, and Ritchie said he was working on a song, though, and she said, “Oh yeah, does it start out as a story?”

  “Yeah, it’s the story of my life.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Or what brought me to this point in my life.”

  “What was that?”

  “Waiting for everybody else to grow up.”

  Angie said, right, “You were waiting for them?” But now she was thinking that was possible: she was seeing Ritchie as pretty much the same guy he was twenty years ago and everybody around him was different. Then she said, “That’s going to be a long song,” and Ritchie smiled.

  “Yeah, I’ll have to do it like Thick as Brick, whole album sides.”

  “Or you could just go straight to iTunes, make it as long as you want.”

  “I guess, but if I followed my life it’d wander all over the place, start in one direction and then change, stuff I thought was going to be important wouldn’t be.” He looked out the window and said, “And there’d be too many characters. People I thought were going to be in my life forever would drop out for years and then show up again.”

  “That story might be too hard to follow.”

  Ritchie strummed a little, played a riff, still not getting what he wanted, and he said, “Yeah, I guess so. I’ll have to find the main storyline, you know. People always want it to be where somebody changes, where they realize something about themselves and become a better person,” and Angie said, but that doesn’t happen, does it? Ritchie said, well, “I’ve never seen it.”

  “You don’t think I’m better?”

  Ritchie looked right at her and said, “I didn’t think there was anything wrong with you before.”

  And Angie said, “Shit, Ritchie.”

  He put the acoustic in its case and sat down on the bed beside Angie. He didn’t put his arm around her or touch or anything like that, and she was glad, just feeling him beside her and knowing he wasn’t going to screw up this moment they were having trying to get laid.

  She said, “I’m glad you’re here,” and he said, “Me, too.”

  Then she said, “Okay, well, I have to get back to work. We’re still pretending everything’s fine and it’s business as usual even though somebody got killed in the parking lot and there’s all these gangsters all over the place.”

  “Isn’t that business as usual?”

  She said, “Ha ha,” but then she thought, yeah, maybe it was bound to happen; they couldn’t stay hidden away in the woods up north of Toronto forever, not with all that money coming through the place every day.

  She stood up and said, “Did you know Larry Gowan is singing with Styx now? We’re booking them.”

  “Yeah, they do a couple of his songs, too: ‘Strange Animal,’ ‘Moonlight Desires.’”

  “And ‘A Criminal Mind.’”

  Ritchie said, “I like the Maestro Fresh-Wes version,” and Angie said, “No you don’t,” laughing.

  Ritchie stood up and put his hands on Angie’s shoulders and she leaned into him thinking, shit, did he always do just the right thing?

  Then he said, “Whatever happens, let’s see where this can go, us.”

  And she put her arms around him thinking there was no way he could have been like this years ago, she would’ve noticed.

  Wouldn’t she?

  • • •

  This Felix Alfano was younger than Gayle expected, better looking, but he talked like an old wiseguy saying, “Usually when I meet somebody new in a place like this we’d go for a spritz, sit around naked, make sure no one’s wearing a wire,” and Gayle said, “Oh I’m sure you could still hide one somewhere,” and the guy looked hurt.

  Then he smiled and said, “You’re funny,” and then he looked serious and said, “This is serious shit — you sure you can talk about it?”

  Gayle said, “You want to see my tats, make sure I’m a one-percenter?”

  “I didn’t know you could be.”

  “Things change.”

  She let that hang there for a minute, then turned to Frank who was sitting in the booth with them but looking like he was going to shit a brick. Fuck, what did he expect them to do, talk about the weather?

  They were in the nicest restaurant in the casino, the Longhouse, had that sign in front that said, “Admission by Invitation Only,” late afternoon and almost no one in the place, maybe a dozen people scattered around in groups of two or three, all Chinese. The waitress in the buckskin had taken their drink orders but nobody wanted anything to eat.

  Then this Felix Alfano said, “We got bikers in Philly, you know, but they’re all fat guys, long hair, look like cavemen,” and Gayle said, “Yeah, we have those, too,” looking at Felix and letting him know they had all kinds — and lots of them.

  Then she was thinking this should really be Nugs here talking to these guys, or Danny, but that wouldn’t work, Danny’d probably say it was too much trouble, just forget it. And she wasn’t sure about Nugs these days, either, National President and he doesn’t ever look like he’s doing anything.

  Felix was saying, “Yeah, I guess you do have a lot of bikers here — I saw a show on TV about your war,” and Gayle looked at him, waiting for him to say he saw her in the movie, the same one Danny was watching probably but there were others, the TV people loved them so much, but now she was thinking maybe Nugs had himself properly insulated and she was taking all the risks, out meeting people in public, doing what they usually used prospects for, then wondering, is that what I am, a prospect?

  Then wondering, fuck, is Danny using me to insulate himself?

  Frank was saying something about the Saints being national now, coast to coast, and Felix said to her, “You’re not worried about attracting too much attention?”

  Gayle said, no, that’s okay, “Those days are gone. That work is done, served its purpose, you know? We don’t need to be so public now.” She wanted to say everybody in the country knows who we are and how much manpower we have, but she was thinking this Felix knew that, he was just having fun with her.

  And she was only half pissed off about that. He was all right, this young, old-time gangster from Philadelphia.

  She said, “So now we have a lot of product we’d like to bring in here.” She looked from Frank — still sitting there like a deer in the headlights — to Felix and said, “If it’s okay with you.”

  And Felix smiled a little and then a lot and then he laughed and said, “You’re good, honey. I like you.” He slapped Frank on the back and said, “Yeah, she’s all right, Frank, isn’t she?”

  She watched Frank nod and say yeah, not even sure if that’s what he was supposed to say, things happening a lot faster than he’d expected.

  Then Felix drank some of his 7 and 7 and said, “The management contract on this casino runs another two years, same as the one in Niagara Falls, and then we’re probably going to up for another five-year run.” He looked right at her, serious now, and said, “And I don’t see anything changing in the way we do business.”

  Gayle leaned back in the booth, wishing she could light a smoke, a distraction before she said anything too quickly, this guy telling her he wasn’t going to back down. How much could she threaten him, how far could she push it?

  She said, “You don’t think there’s room for more business here?”

  Felix said no, and that was it, everybody was being reasonable, talking about it, but that’s the way it was going to be.

  Gayle nodded slowly, not sure what to say. She looked at Frank and he had no idea.

  Then Felix said, “They have a caribou steak here. It’s really good, not really local — these Indians were more fishermen and farmers — but it’s good.”

  Gayle said it was a little too early for a steak and Felix said, yeah, true enough, and just looked
at her.

  Gayle wasn’t sure how she was going to play this, but there was no way she was going to just walk away now.

  • • •

  Frank walked back to his office thinking this was going to be weird. The bikers sent one of their wives — well, Frank was the one who met her and set up the money deal, the laundering, and then she suggested there might be more business they could do — but he just naturally thought the guys would take over.

  Okay, fair enough, the chick seemed to know what she was doing — Felix sat there with a smug fucking smile on his face telling her they weren’t going to budge and she just shrugged and said, okay fine, if that’s the way you want to play this.

  And then everybody shook hands and went back to work as if it was a sales pitch from a company looking to install new carpets but their bid was too high.

  Back at his office Frank closed the door behind him and then it opened again right away and he turned around to tell whoever it was to leave him alone for ten fucking minutes but then he saw it was, of all people, Ritchie Stone, and Frank said, “Ritchie, what the hell do you want?”

  Ritchie came right into the office and closed the door, saying, “Hey, Frank,” and looking around like he was impressed, like he was surprised, and Frank was thinking, fuck you, punk, but not about to give him the satisfaction, and walked across the big room to the bar.

  Ritchie just stood there not saying anything, and Frank was wondering if this was going to be his play, if he was coming in here like Cliff and the stoned bass player looking for money from back in the dark ages, Frank thinking, shit, this could actually be funny.

  So Frank said, “What do you want, Ritchie?” and Ritchie said, I want to talk to you, and Frank said, oh yeah, “What do you want to talk about?”

  And Ritchie didn’t say anything right away, so Frank said, here, “Let me tell you my foolproof method for not becoming an alcoholic,” and Ritchie said, “I hope it’s better than your method for not becoming an asshole.”

  “I have to hang around all these guys,” Frank said, getting out crystal highball glasses and ice, “all these old-timers and they always want to have a drink. The whole health craze never caught on, you know what I mean? No joggers, no treadmills in their offices.”

  Ritchie said, “Gee, that’s too bad, Frank — I’m sure you’re disappointed,” and for a second Frank thought about turning around and throwing the fucking glass at the little prick’s head but instead he just took a breath and said, “But three-hour lunch meetings every fucking day? Those they have. Every hotel room I ever stayed in was a suite, with a bar.” He had the bottle of Canadian Club in one hand and a glass full of ice in the other. “And every deal I closed, every shitty band that got signed to a record deal or picked up as an opening act, including you punks, Higher than shit, every deal was closed over a drink. Every one of those meetings you had to have a fucking glass in your hand.” He put the bottle down and picked up a little silver jigger, holding it in one hand and the glass of ice in the other, and said, “And this, my friend, is the secret.”

  Ritchie said, what, a glass of ice?

  “That’s right, a glass full of ice and the jigger.” He filled it with the CC. “A glass of ice is really a third full of water. You add one ounce of booze, just one ounce, and the mix. Then you hold onto this fucking glass until the ice melts and you drink the water.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, that’s all there is to it. Simple, eh?” He poured another jigger of CC into another glass filled with ice and added the ginger ale. “This way, you always have a drink in your hand, you’re the life of the fucking party, but you know exactly how much booze you’re drinking and you’re always getting enough water. Booze dehydrates, did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Ritchie held out his hand and accepted the glass from Frank.

  “I see my kids,” Frank said, “pouring straight from the bottle, I stop ’em right away, tell ’em, that’s how you become an alcoholic.”

  “You don’t just make more drinks?”

  Frank was leaning back against his desk then, looking right at Ritchie, saying, shit no, “You sip it while the assholes keep knocking ’em back. You see a guy on his way to becoming a boozehound, first thing, he stops using ice, takes up too much room in the glass. Then he starts pouring from the bottle, giving himself two, three ounces at a time, just enough mix to add colour, and then he stops with the mix altogether.”

  Ritchie drank his rye and ginger, nodding, looked like he was considering it, thinking about it.

  Frank was saying, it’s easy to do, “I’ve seen so many guys do it.” Then he snapped his fingers saying, “Albert what’s-his-name, program director at that station in Detroit,” and Ritchie said, McCauley, and Frank said, right, “Albert McCauley, watched the guy turn into an alkie right in front of me. Him and dozens more. A shame, really.”

  Ritchie said, yeah, and then he said, “But you couldn’t stop Angie?”

  And Frank realized, shit, that’s what this is about, Angie. Figures Ritchie wasn’t coming in here for money, only guy Frank’d ever met really didn’t seem to give a shit about the money — why he never had any. He shook his head and looked at Ritchie and said, “With Angie it was the drugs.”

  He walked around his desk, looked out the wall of glass at the lake and the trees, any other country in the world it was a million-dollar view, now it was finally starting to get that way in Canada, too, now that it was getting scarce, and he said, “The drugs are different.”

  Ritchie said yeah.

  “Hey,” Frank said, turning back around and looking at Ritchie, taking a drink of his rye and ginger, “she’s doing okay.”

  Ritchie said, yeah, she’s great.

  “Is that what this is about?” Frank said. “You still want to get into Angie’s pants?”

  “I’m worried about her Frank, you running around with all these gangsters.”

  “She’s a big girl — she can take care of herself.”

  “No doubt, but she likes you. She might stay too close and get caught in the crossfire.”

  “There’s not going to be any crossfire.”

  “Frank, I saw that guy get shot in the parking lot. Angie’d just driven out two minutes before.”

  Frank looked at Ritchie and said, she had? Then he watched Ritchie think about that, think maybe he’d tipped his hand but wasn’t even sure. Then Frank said, “This really isn’t any of your business.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Have you ever had any idea what you were doing?”

  Frank laughed and said, “Is this Ritchie-boy asking me if I have a plan? The kid who can’t think past his next groupie, that’s fucking hilarious.”

  “You don’t, do you?”

  “You think this is about planning? You think you can sit down and figure out where everything’s going and then do it? No, Ritchie, this is real life. It’s like one of your lame-ass solos: you never know where it’s gonna go.”

  Ritchie said, yeah, well, “You should know where you don’t want it to go.”

  “You talking big picture? You think there’s a big picture? You can only see that when it’s over, Ritchie. In the meantime, day by day, you just get through it.”

  “You’ve always been full of shit,” Ritchie said, “and some things never change.” He downed his drink, put the glass on Frank’s desk, and started walking out of the office, and Frank said, “Look at you.”

  Ritchie stopped and looked back and said, what?, and Frank said, “Walking away. You haven’t changed, that’s for damned sure.”

  Ritchie gave him the finger as he walked out and Frank said, “Fuck you,” but then he sat down behind his desk and a lot of the energy drained out of him. He did feel like he was scrambling again, like he was trying to make another move that would pay off more and then he could make another one, and i
t was starting to feel like it was just the same shit on a different day.

  But then he realized that wasn’t true. This time he’d gone all in — there was no going back. If these fucking bikers didn’t move in and take over there’d be no going back. It’s not like he could put the band back together and head out on the road; it’s not like he could go back to managing or running a showroom.

  No, this was going to have to work. No matter who got hit in the crossfire.

  Then the phone on his desk rang and he answered it and his receptionist told him that cop, Detective Bolduc, was here, and before he could say anything she walked right into his office and he put on his happy face and asked her if she wanted a drink.

  TEN

  Detective Loewen set up the meeting at a Boston Pizza in Barrie, not exactly halfway between Toronto and the casino, but close enough, and sitting down, Price said, “Hey, man, here you are actually doing some task force work, liaisoning,” and Loewen said, yeah, well, “Maybe someday I’ll actually do it official — put it in a report and get some credit for it.”

  McKeon said, “Everybody wants credit, but be careful, means you might get some of the blame if it goes bad,” and Price said, “If?”

  Detective Sandra Bolduc came into the restaurant then and sat down with them saying, “Andre Price, I thought it might be you. We worked that one, the guy shot in the head and thrown out of the minivan on the 401,” and Price said, oh yeah, “That was a long time ago — we were both wearing uniforms.”

  The waitress came over and Loewen and Bolduc ordered beers and Price and McKeon each ordered iced tea, McKeon saying, “You don’t have to, Andre,” and him saying, “I’m watching my figure — I don’t have that uniform to hide in anymore.”

  McKeon looked at Bolduc and said, “I’m in the program, well unofficially,” and Price said, “Shit, we do everything unofficial.”