by Mike Knowles
“Come,” he said.
We got up from the chairs and followed the sweaty hulk to the aisle. Ahead of us Pyrros Vogli, Albanian gangster and apparently wrestling promoter, walked towards an office door. When we entered the office, Pyrros was on a couch smiling like a cat who woke up to find that someone left the birdcage open.
“Impressive, eh?”
Miles wasted no time. “Oh, sure. Especially when he totalled the other kid’s face.”
The big wrestler snorted. “His fault. He moved.”
“No doubt,” Miles agreed. “Maybe next time he’ll think before you jump on him.”
The wrestler looked at me. “Not so fake, eh?”
“Bit much for a practice,” I said.
“I hear they sacrifice a virgin at the live shows,” Miles said. This got a snort from Carl.
The laugh got under the wrestler’s skin. I doubted he was used to being made fun of. “You want to see how real it is?”
I stepped in front of Miles. My hand was on the small of my back. “If you show me yours, big man, I’ll show you mine.”
Pyrros lifted a hand and said, “Attila.” The single word shut the big man down like a power cord being pulled from the wall.
“Always the hard man, James. That hardness might get you in trouble one day when you find that you don’t have the upper hand you think you do.”
The wrestler nodded emphatically.
“He’s going to jump on you,” Miles said in a whisper loud enough for everyone to hear. “I hear the trick is not to move.”
Attila looked confused. I could tell from the look on his face and the darting of his eyes that he was new to being picked on and he didn’t like it. He was trying to come up with a response, but the door opened before he got the chance to get out whatever lump of coal his heavy brain was trying to forge into a verbal diamond.
The trainer ran into the room out of breath. His sweats were stained with blood. “Mr. Vogli, we can’t wait for an ambulance. We need to get Elvin to a hospital now.”
“Attila will help.”
“That’s okay, sir, I have things handled.”
“Attila will help,” Pyrros repeated. This time there was no counter.
Attila shouldered past the man and angled his massive shoulders out the door. “Come,” he said to the trainer.
“Attila,” Pyrros called. “Tell Len to come in.”
I heard the big man bellow the name loud enough to produce an echo off the warehouse walls.
“Attila?” I said.
Pyrros shrugged. “He gave himself the name, but I think it suits him. He is a barbarian, plain and simple.”
A man knocked on the open office door and waited just outside. Pyrros sighed and said, “Just come in, Len. It’s your office.”
A well-dressed man stepped inside. He was the second half of the pair I had met the day before. Dressed in a linen suit and small gold-rimmed glasses, he looked like what Attila might evolve into in a few thousand years. “I did not want to interrupt anything.”
Of the two men working for Pyrros, Len was clearly the brains. He looked like a banker at the end of a long day. He wore the suit without a tie and the stubble on his face was a few hours past five o’clock and just starting to sprout an inch below the eyes. Pyrros had the same thing, only his stubble was already in full bloom. I pegged them as kinsmen. Len took a seat behind the desk and opened a Mac laptop.
“This is your crew?” Pyrros asked.
I nodded.
“Kind of small, don’t you think?”
“Depends,” I said.
“Depends on what?”
“Depends on how you do the job.”
“Like Newfies and light bulbs,” Pyrros said slapping his knee.
“Was that Albanian?” Miles whispered.
“He likes jokes,” I said.
Pyrros immediately looked to Len, giving me the impression that the spiffy underling was no stranger to being a one-man audience. Len was already in the process of closing his laptop in order to give his boss his full attention.
“How many Newfies does it take to screw in a light bulb?”
Len shrugged.
“Three. One to hold the bulb, two to spin the ladder.”
Len barked out a laugh that was louder than the one that came from Pyrros a second later.
“Seriously?” Miles said.
“That was one of the first jokes I learned when I came to this country,” Pyrros said.
Len guffawed for a few more seconds until a tense quiet filled the room.
“I am surprised that you brought them here, James,” Pyrros said.
“Uh hunh,” I said.
“Did you not feel safe coming alone?”
“It’s a job — they’re part of it, so they’re here.”
“Like I said, I am surprised. Do you think I bring Attila everywhere with me?”
“Don’t you?”
“He accompanies me when I need someone to stand beside me and look scary, but not to listen to business.”
“Like you said, he’s a barbarian, plain and simple.”
“And you are —”
“Not plain, not simple,” I finished.
Pyrros smiled to himself. It wasn’t a smile that came from thinking happy thoughts. “So are you both up to speed, as they say?”
Miles and Carl nodded.
“So we are all classical music lovers in this room, eh?”
“No one likes classical music,” Miles said.
“You are right there. No one likes classical music, but people pretend to. People pay to look like they do. And that is what matters — that people pay. People use the music as a tool, a ladder, to show that they are above the rest of us. Am I right, Len?”
Len had opened the computer again and was busy connecting a wireless mouse. He stopped everything when he was addressed and again closed the laptop. “Pyrros is correct. While not mainstream, classical music does have the appearance of respectability. Old money is an established benefactor of the classical arts, and new money contributes almost double in an effort to prove that they are themselves no less than their peers.”
Pyrros nodded sagely. “Like I said, it takes money to be above the rest of us; that’s why the penthouse is so expensive.”
“Here I thought it was because they showed more skin than Playboy,” Miles said.
Len looked nervous, but Pyrros barked out a laugh. Len came in a second later. “I like this one, James. He is funny.”
“He thinks so,” I said.
“I think so. Len thinks so. Right, Len?”
“Yes, Pyrros. He is very funny.”
“Funny doesn’t pay the bills,” I said.
Pyrros nodded. “That is true. I do.”
“Two-fifty is too low,” I said.
Pyrros looked at me. “Another joke.”
Len started to laugh, but he quickly stopped when he realized Pyrros hadn’t started.
“I went through the drive Len gave me,” I said. “It isn’t some fiddle you want — it’s a Stradivarius. There are only about 600 violins made by Antonio Stradivari in existence today. Two years back, a Stradivarius sold for just under sixteen million. One lost in a cab in New York back in oh-eight was worth four million. Now, Len didn’t put a price tag on the violin on that drive he gave me, but the age of the instrument was listed. This particular Stradivarius is 288 years old. Older than the one that sold for four, but younger than the one that went for sixteen. That time period puts it right at the end of Antonio Stradivari’s golden period. Best estimate, I figure the violin is worth eight million.”
“And what do you want?”
“Ten percent,” I said.
Pyrros laughed. Len didn’t even try to join in because it was clear that it wasn�
�t that kind of chuckle. “Eight million dollars is only eight million when you can find someone to pay it. This isn’t like fencing diamonds or gold. There aren’t people on every block looking to buy old violins.”
“What is your buyer offering you?”
Pyrros looked at Len. It was a quick look, nothing but eye movement, but I caught it. “Not your business.”
“Close,” I said. “Not my problem. What is my problem is crossing the border, stealing the violin, and getting back here to get paid. Doing all of those things within a week adds up to ten percent.”
Pyrros looked at Miles and Carl. “He speak for all of you, funny man?”
Miles shrugged. “Depends on what he is saying. In this case he wants to pay me two hundred sixty-six thousand whereas you want to pay me eighty-three. So, yep, in this case he talks for me.”
Carl spoke without being asked for his opinion. “A lot of hassle for eighty K.”
Pyrros dug around in between the couch cushions until he came out with a small orange basketball that paired with the small plastic net above the door. Pyrros didn’t go for a shot; he just squeezed the ball hard enough to make the rubber bulge between his fingers. He crushed the ball with enough force to push the veins on his forearms to the surface. He squeezed, then relaxed his hand before ratcheting up the pressure all over again. He said something to Len in Albanian. The words were harsh sounding and seemed to be packed with the danger of machine-gunfire. Len spoke back in the same language, but his words didn’t seem as volatile as his boss’s. Whatever the well-dressed man said, it pissed Pyrros off. He raised his voice and barked something back that shut Len up.
Pyrros looked back at me. “No,” he said.
I nodded and went for the door. Miles and Carl followed me out.
When the door closed behind us, Miles said, “Waste of a day, Wilson.”
“Five each,” I said. “For the trouble.”
“Cool,” Miles said.
“I won’t fight you on it,” Carl said.
“If,” I said.
“If what?” Miles asked.
“If this job falls through.”
“What do you mean if, Wilson? The man said no.”
“Miles, that violin has a shorter shelf life than day-old bread. In a week, he won’t be getting at it. I don’t speak Albanian, but I would guess Len was trying to make his boss see that. They don’t have the time to find someone else to do this job for what Pyrros wants to pay.”
“Unless he does the job with his own people,” Carl said.
“If this guy thought that his own people could handle the work, he would have never found me.”
“So we wait,” Carl said.
I nodded. “If we don’t hear any accented English after a day, I pay you out and you can go back to your day jobs.”
“Job?” Miles said. “If I wanted to have a job, I wouldn’t be a guy who steals for a living.”
CHAPTER TEN
We never even made it out of the parking lot.
Len came running out the door, to find the three of us still talking.
“So you got him to come around,” I said.
“And then you got sent to run around,” Miles chirped. He looked at Carl. When he said nothing, Miles leaned over and whispered, “Your turn. It has to work in the word ‘around.’”
We all ignored Miles.
“Pyrros says ten percent.”
“Half up front,” I said.
Len put his hands on his hips. “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We were all back in the office. Len at the desk, Pyrros on the couch, the three of us standing by the door. Pyrros hadn’t handled the half up front demand very well. After giving Len an earful, he turned his dwindling rage on me.
“You want me to give you four hundred thousand dollars for doing nothing!”
“Down payment,” I said.
“And how do I know you will get me my violin, James? How do I know you won’t just run off with my money?”
“How do I know you’ll pay me when I get it?”
“Carl, you feel left out?”
Both Carl and I spoke at the same time. “Shut up, Miles.”
I continued, “Half now keeps everybody honest, Pyrros.”
The Albanian gangster ran a hand through his hair. He looked at Len and spoke more Albanian. This time the words weren’t as sharp, but I bet they could still hurt if Pyrros wanted them to.
Len typed at the computer with hard keystrokes. After a minute, he looked up from the screen and spoke to Pyrros in Albanian.
“Done,” Pyrros said.
“Tomorrow morning at nine, have Len meet us with the money at the poker tables inside Fallsview Casino. The money will be in one bag. Bound stacks of twenties. Nothing larger, nothing smaller.”
“Why all the way out there?”
“We need to cross the border tomorrow to check things out in person,” I said. “The casino is a good spot to meet.” A good public spot to meet is what I meant. A place where it would be hard for Attila to jump on me without a lot of cameras picking it up.
Pyrros nodded. “I will tell Ilir.”
“What the hell is an Ilir?” Miles asked.
“He is your fourth man,” Pyrros said.
“When did that happen?” Carl asked.
“When you asked for half the money up front,” Pyrros said. “I am not handing over that kind of money without someone to be there to make sure I get what I paid for.”
I expected as much. There was no way I could say no to this. If I showed any kind of friction, Pyrros would take it to mean that I had some kind of scam in mind. It was a good play, but it was a pawn I was ready to give up. “He’s on your payroll, not ours.”
“Agreed,” Pyrros said.
“Tomorrow, Len,” I said.
Len looked to Pyrros before he nodded to me.
I was in the doorway when Pyrros spoke to my back.
“Did you ever hear the one about the thief who robbed the gangster?”
I turned and looked at the gangster. He wasn’t squeezing the ball anymore — he was passing it back and forth in his hands sort of like a cat playing with a ball of yarn. I shook my head.
“No? It’s a good one, a classic. These three thieves rob a card game. They come in wearing masks, guns out, screaming all kinds of typical stick-up talk. You know how it goes. ‘Freeze,’ ‘Nobody move,’ ‘Fuck this,’ and ‘Fuck that.’ Well, at the card table are a bunch of men who used to be the kind of guys who yelled, ‘Fuck this’ and ‘Fuck that.’ But now, these guys are respectable — sort of. So these three masked men start taking money off the table. They start with the pot and then start taking what each of the card players has in front of them. When they get to last man, he looks at the one who seems to be the leader and says, ‘Do you know who you are fucking with?’ The thief says, ‘No,’ because he really doesn’t. The older criminal says, ‘We were pulling stick-ups before you were born, you little shit. We were all full of piss and vinegar. We were young and stupid. We were you.’ The thief hits the man with his gun like this —”
Pyrros lifted the ball in his hand and slammed it into his fist.
“The thief says, ‘If you were me then you should have seen that coming.’”
Miles chuckled, but he was the only one; not even Len laughed. Miles looked at everyone and said, “What? It was a good line.”
Pyrros holds up a hand. “I’m getting to the best part. So he hits the older man with the gun. He says his clever line. Then the three men run with the money. The next day the five old men meet back at the same table. Only this time, there are eight players. The five from the night before are there and so are the three thieves. The old men brought more money, and the thieves had the money they stole. The game went on all night.
The thieves were playing like shit. Mostly, they complained that the rope around their ankles and chest hurt, but they had a lot of money and the game went on. When the first thief ran out of money, they made him bet his clothes. The same happened to the second man. When they ran out of clothes, they bet body parts. Teeth first, then fingers, toes, cock, balls, arms, finally legs. When they ran out of body parts they went out the back door still tied to their chairs to settle up. The last thief left was the one with the clever line. The five old men took his money bit by bit, then his teeth, then his fingers and toes. It was the one he hit who took the rest. He won the cock with two pair, the balls with a flush, and the arms and legs with a full house. And as they were dragging the last thief out, the older man said —”
Pyrros waved a hand in the air.
“What did I say, Len?”
Len looked as sober as a kid on the first day of school. “You said to the thief, ‘I meant what I said. You are just like me when I was your age. The problem with being a young me is that I didn’t learn how to cheat at poker until I was in my forties.’”
“Tell them the best part, Len. Tell them what happened next.”
Len paused for a second, not for effect. There was a look of strain on his face as though the memory was something heavy and hard to move. “You dragged the table into the back room and you made me, let me, play poker with you while they took the thief apart. It lasted hours.”
Pyrros looked at me, the stress ball loose in his hand. “And that is the one about the thief who robbed the gangster.”
No one laughed. No one said a word.
“Get it?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
MONDAY
Nine a.m. in a casino is an interesting time of day. It’s too early for casual gamblers and the all-nighters have usually crashed just after breakfast. What’s left is a leper colony of the lonely and the addicted. I sat at the table with Miles and Carl playing my fifth hand of poker. I had been watching Miles and Carl more than my cards. Carl was playing it conservative while Miles aggressively pushed the pace and the bets. The seat I chose was against the wall and it gave me a clear 180-degree view of the floor. I had already looked over the staff and the sparse crowd of gamblers before I sat down. None of them gave me any notice; they were all focused on the slots or the cards.