by Robin Spano
The closet? Clare opened it to see clothes and shoes. Mostly super-casual, but good names, like Timberland and Burton.
“Addiction’s complicated,” Noah said. “Hey, you think you could get me a phone number?”
“Whose?” Clare stood on tiptoes to see the top shelf. She reached to pull a shoebox forward and it tumbled down onto the floor. Shit. More photos, now spread all over the carpet. And under that, wedged into the bottom of the box, several pieces of white paper.
“Wade Harrison’s. He owns the bar where you’re working.”
“Of course I can get Wade’s number.” Clare started pulling photos up, placing them back in the box. They were all of Sacha. “What do you want it for?”
“Bert wants me to ask Wade some questions. But he doesn’t want you asking, because he doesn’t want to threaten your cover.”
“Oh, so you’re not only doing paperwork.”
“No, it’s a bit more engaging. Maybe if things go well, I’ll end up in Casino Royale with you.”
Clare snorted. “Because I’ll really want someone along to cramp my style. Nice talking to you.”
“Clare, I —”
“Don’t worry. I’ll get you that number you want.”
Clare pressed Off on her new phone.
What was wrong with her? She couldn’t go to her sick father, she couldn’t be nice to the man she was in love with. Her best relationships were phony. Because it was easy to be warm when your time with a person had a shelf life?
Maybe that’s why she and Noah had clicked so hard, so fast — they were both undercover when they met, and Clare felt free to be herself behind the shield of a second persona. But a year of real life had been chipping away at that honesty.
Clare gripped her phone tightly, glared at it. She wanted to call Noah back, but she’d wait until she had something to say.
She pried the papers from the bottom of the box. There were three or four documents that Jana clearly wanted hidden, about U.S. drug policy. Clare didn’t understand their significance — looked like bureaucratic jargon about being tough on crime — but Martha Westlake’s name was all over them.
Clare took pictures with her phone. She made sure the images were clear before emailing them to Amanda. She wanted to delete the photos from her phone — and the sent mail history along with them — but she should make sure they’d been received first.
Clare was still annoyed that Amanda hadn’t looped her into the possible smuggling, but she bit her pride and dialed Amanda’s number as she replaced the papers in the bottom of the shoebox and began to gather the scattered photos from the floor. Hopefully Jana’s slobbery extended to her mementos and she wouldn’t notice that the contents of the box were wildly out of place.
“Lucy.” Amanda’s voice was clipped.
“Can’t talk.” Clare matched Amanda’s short tone — better to pretend she was busy than to let her anger show. “Just sent you some files — can you confirm receipt before I delete them from my phone?”
“Um . . .” A beat while Amanda checked. “Yup. Received. Wait . . . yup, the images are good. Go ahead and delete. Talk tomorrow?”
“Sure.” Clare ruffled the comforter so it didn’t look like she’d been sitting on the bed, reached on her tiptoes to replace the shoebox in Jana’s closet, and left the apartment for work.
SEVENTEEN
RICHIE
Richie sliced his snowboard’s edge to a hard stop outside the chalet. He smiled at the neighboring mountains in the Coast range, snow-covered and wild-looking. The air smelled best on powder days. The fresh snow had a sweet, clean scent. Richie could see why so many laundry detergents tried to replicate the outdoors. You couldn’t see the village from the peak, but you could feel that it was down there. Down there to be conquered.
Once Richie owned a piece of Whistler — a respectable bar like Avalanche, no less — he’d be that much further from Scarborough. The concrete jungle of apartment blocks and sirens at all hours couldn’t reach out and grab him back into its fold.
He waved at Chopper, already on the patio with a pitcher of beer. Richie leaned his board into a holding slot and climbed the outside stairs to join Chopper at his table.
“I’m shocked, man,” Richie said as he sat down. “You, riding groomers — must be a powder day.”
Chopper leaned back in his chair, cast his glance around at the falling snow, thick and chunky. “Why go to the trouble of climbing into the back country when the lifts can drop me right into this sick shit? It’s Monday, all the weekend warriors are gone. It’ll take two days for this snow to get skiied out.”
“Hey, you don’t need to convince me.” Richie hated having to skin up a hill. A gondola or chair was so much more civilized. But he wasn’t meeting Chopper to talk sports. “We got a real big problem.”
“Yeah?” Chopper’s eyebrows rose, but his shoulders stayed relaxed.
Richie glanced around to make sure no one was near enough to overhear. “Seattle. They want the Snow tomorrow or they’ll only pay half-price.”
Chopper laughed. “And I want a time-traveling snowmobile. We’ll ship them the batch when the heat clears. Full price.”
Richie shook his head. “This is how they roll. And it gets better: after next Monday, they’re calling a default.”
“What’s a default mean?” Chopper wasn’t laughing anymore.
“It means we owe them a million bucks — which might sound crazy, but the Snow is worth two mil street value.” It still blew Richie’s mind that they were dealing with such giant figures, but that was LSD — virtually cost-free production, tiny little squares of paper that were ten bucks a pop at street value. Stuff a travel backpack full of the shit, it added up quick.
“And if we can’t pay?” Chopper asked.
“We deliver free product until we work it off.”
“Fuck that, I’m not their bitch.” Chopper shook his head, blond dreads sticking down straight like pipe cleaners. “This last batch of Mountain Snow tried to kill me.”
Richie frowned. “Did it come out bad?”
“Nah. Just had to adjust the cooking temperature by a couple degrees to allow for this sub-zero weather. I was rushing at first. I’ve been messed up since . . . you know.”
Richie knew. “You got everything put away okay? I’m hoping our FBI friend never makes it up your mountain, but if he came to your place, would he twig that you’re running a factory?”
“Shouldn’t,” Chopper said. “I dismantled the whole setup. Ingredients are locked away separately from each other — so not suspicious. I scattered the apparati so some of it looks like kitchen gadgets and other stuff like chemistry class nostalgia.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“It’s packed in a box that says High School.” Chopper laughed. “With report cards and essays and the pinups of Alyssa Milano I used to keep in my locker.”
Richie’s eyebrows lifted. “And the batch is good?” The last thing he needed was to risk his freedom bringing drugs across the border only to have the batch rejected on the receiving end.
“Beautiful. I tested the new batch last night; pure as it always is. Had a wicked cool vision of Sacha smiling out from a tree.”
“Good.” Richie didn’t want to hear about it.
Chopper sipped his beer.
“You seen anyone new in town?” Richie asked.
“Just ten zillion tourists. Man, is it me, or is the gaper alert super-high right now?”
“Yeah, rental shops are booming,” Richie said. “Anyone asking questions?”
“Nah. But there’s a new cutie I gave lessons to. She spent the first half of the lesson telling me how much she hates me, then she asks if I’m available for another lesson tomorrow.”
“You say yes?”
“Damn right.” Chopper flashed a broad grin. “
Gonna take her on some hard runs. Piss her off.”
Richie poured himself half a glass of beer from Chopper’s pitcher. “We got a second problem, too. Norris wants more money. Ten Gs. Allegedly to find out the name of this FBI agent.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“I’m not sure.” Richie kissed his lips — a long, slow smacking sound that Jana said was ghetto, but felt too good to stop doing. “There’s something true and something not.”
Chopper pulled a joint from his pocket and lit up. Right on the public patio — man, this town was good for the pot industry. Richie realized — too late — that he should have stuck with the drug that he knew. Or at least stuck to dealing locally. It was Sacha who had stirred up the idea about bringing the Mountain Snow south.
“I think we should pay,” Chopper said. “What’s five grand each? Hardly painful.”
“Hardly painful when we’re rolling in it. You forget our money supply is dry at the moment. Or is it because you and Norris are friends, you want to cave to his demands?”
“No, I think Norris is being a douche not to swallow this. But if we don’t pay, we could be screwing ourselves out of protection while we need it. We can always punish him later.”
Richie could work with that: pay now, punish later. “You’re right,” he said. “What’s five grand?”
EIGHTEEN
CLARE
Clare slammed back a fruity shot and met Jana’s eye behind the bar. “You sure we’re allowed to do shooters on the job?”
“Chill, Goody Two-Shoes. We’re allowed.” Jana stuck a sword with three small olives into a murky martini. “Makes the customers way less annoying.”
Clare loaded her tray with the martini and two pints of beer. Her body screamed from the abuse she’d put it through on the ski hill — every movement she made shot a different muscle with pain.
“You sure you’re fine with that tray? Most people don’t use two hands.”
“I’m afraid I’ll break something.”
“Okay, but if you keep holding the tray from its sides, Wade’s going to know you lied on your résumé.”
“Shit, you’re right.” Clare flattened her palm like the waitress who’d trained her had shown her. “Wait — how did you know I lied on my résumé?”
Jana grinned. “I know what experience looks like. It’s not that.”
Clare slid the tray onto her palm even though she was sure it would fall over and launch drinks in every direction. “Hey, do we have a karaoke song book? My customers want to look through it.”
Jana reached down the bar for a thick green binder. She peered at Clare’s table. “The women are going to choose Madonna or Cyndi Lauper, and the men . . . Metallica.”
“Why Metallica?” The group was in their thirties and dressed like they’d just come from Wall Street. Or whatever the BC equivalent of Wall Street was.
“Mainstream, but makes them feel bad-ass. You and I should do a song later.” Jana poured a rum and Coke — or rum and cola, because the bar used a generic brand. She popped a straw inside and started sipping.
“Are we allowed to sing? What if our customers want a drink while we’re onstage?” Clare felt like a square for asking, but it was important to keep this job.
“You need another waitress to cover your section and I need to ask Wade to work the bar, which is always fine with him — he loves being close to his liquor. You should take those drinks now. Your customers are looking over.”
Clare balanced the tray and songbook successfully — all the way to the table with no spills, to her surprise. As she left her customers, she saw Chopper coming in the front door.
“Hey, Lucy.” He flashed her a toothy grin. “I want to sit in your section.”
“My section is one table, and it’s full.”
“So I’ll sit at the bar. You have to come there for your drinks, right?”
Jana nodded hello at Chopper and started pouring a pint of something dark. “A shot, too?” she asked him.
“If Lucy’s having one with me.”
“Sure.” Clare could come to like this job. “What are we drinking?”
“I like SoCo, but feel free to shoot what you like. On me.”
“Southern Comfort works. And I owe you a beer,” Clare said. “For all this pain you put me in.”
“Pain. That’s fitting because you were being a pain on the mountain today. Do you always insult people who are trying to help you learn?”
“Do you always laugh at people who aren’t superstars on their first run down the hill?”
Chopper smiled slowly. “Okay, buy me a beer, I’ll buy you shots all night.”
“Are you trying to get me drunk?”
“’Course I am. A girl like you would never hook up with me sober.”
“Oh,” Clare said. “So you like sloppy drunks.”
“There’s always the next morning.”
Jana rolled her eyes as Chopper and Clare handed back their empty shot glasses. “Already, MacPherson? Give her, like, a day to look around at her options.” She turned to Clare. “You’ll find much better guys here than Chopper. You want to rebound from your Toronto ex with someone fabulous.”
“Like who?” Clare glanced around the bar. It was half-full, which she thought was pretty good for a Monday night.
“Like me,” Chopper said.
“Lucy’s not into brainiac freaks.”
“Brainiac?” Clare glanced at Chopper and saw the same laid-back snow bum she’d met at her lesson. Maybe brainiac was snowboarder slang for its opposite. “What are you smart in?”
“Thanks a lot.” Chopper smirked.
“He’s smart in everything. Especially chemistry.” Jana pulled a songbook from the pile and started flipping through it on the bar. “We used to sing the Divinyls’ ‘I Touch Myself.’ Me and Sacha. We’d do shooters and look through the list, and we’d always end up picking that. Remember, Chopper?”
Chopper raised his eyebrows, like of course he remembered, he just didn’t find it especially cute. “Are those Sacha’s bracelets?” He gestured to Jana’s wrist where several bands of beads and string and silver charms tangled over top of one another.
“Yeah. They help me remember her.” Jana cast her pretty eyes down to the bar for a moment. “Anyway, people thought we were funny. Neither one of us could sing but they liked our dirty gestures. You want to sing it with me, Lucy?”
“No.” Clare was starting to wish there was a lock on her bedroom door — or someone else sleeping in the apartment with her and Jana. She thought again of the box of Sacha photos in Jana’s closet, wondered if she should study it more closely. “Is that normal, that my customers are waving at me?”
“At least they’re not snapping their fingers. You better go see what they want.”
Clare found her group ready with its first round of karaoke requests. She returned to the bar and asked Jana what to do with the song selections. Chopper wasn’t there but his beer and his coat were, so he couldn’t have gone far.
Jana took the papers. “Ha! Cyndi Lauper — what did I say?”
“You said Cyndi Lauper. What did the guys pick?”
“George Michael. ‘One More Try.’ God, what a downer. Don’t put that sheet in.”
“I have to,” Clare said. “They’ll wonder why their name isn’t called.”
“Fine; put it in. Depress the whole bar. But if you do, I’m putting your name on ‘I Touch Myself.’”
“Jana!”
Jana held the tiny pencil above the tiny paper. “Lucy.”
Clare didn’t see how she could win. But four angry customers didn’t sound as bad as dancing publicly on a dead girl’s grave, so she said, “Fine. I’ll tell them the DJ can’t find the George Michael track. I hope no one else requests it.”
“No one will.” Jan
a set down her pencil and continued to flip through the songbook. “And no one cares if you sing Sacha’s song. It’s not like she owned the patent. But I’ll find us something else.”
Onstage, a man in a plaid shirt was singing “Friends in Low Places.” When Clare turned and looked at his face she saw it was Chopper.
“He’s good,” Clare said to Jana.
“Chopper? He’s annoying.”
“He’s a really good snowboard instructor.” Clare felt something stirring in her, watching Chopper croon the Garth Brooks lyrics with a sexy combination of silly and serious.
Jana snorted. “So you won’t sing Sacha’s song, but you’ll sleep in her bed and work in her job and drool over the guy she used to sleep with.”
“You said she was sleeping with Wade.”
“She was in love with Wade. But Wade’s married.”
“So Sacha and Wade weren’t having sex?” Fatigue and Southern Comfort fought for the job of clouding Clare’s brain.
“Of course they were having sex. But Sacha was afraid of falling too hard for a married man. She slept with Chopper the odd time — and a couple other guys, too — like she was trying to convince herself she could take or leave Wade. Haven’t you ever done that?”
Clare looked at Chopper up onstage. The song was almost over, which was a shame — she could listen to him sing all night. She figured him to be in his late thirties — he’d just missed the memo about getting a real job sometime at the end of the last decade. Or maybe he had it figured out better than anyone. Maybe chilling in paradise, getting exercise and fresh air and women when you wanted them was exactly what the world’s real geniuses aimed to achieve.
And the way he sang — Clare could climb on top of his tall, muscled body with energy to spare. But as she let her thoughts turn graphic, picturing just what she’d like to do with Chopper, Clare suddenly missed Noah. She wanted to be in New York, eating takeout in his tiny Chelsea apartment, figuring out a way to make their relationship work.
“Yeah,” she said to Jana. “Yeah, I have done that.”