I did. I just nodded.
“People care about brands. And so, to a certain extent, if you don’t care about brands, you don’t care about people.”
I nodded again, and Burke took a drag on his cigarette.
“Second, and I guess more fundamentally, brands are important. You pointed out that you wouldn’t even know that Lover Boys was art unless it had a certificate of authenticity. That’s true. But it’s still art. It was the artist trying to send a message. And so if you lose the brand, if you only look at the thing itself, with no understanding of how that thing is viewed by other people, you lose something. You don’t just lose all the stupid stuff, like a painting being worth more because Damien Hirst signed it. You also lose the message that can be there, that can really be there, in a bag of candy.”
Burke looked off to the street and thought for a moment before he continued.
“A lot of people die of AIDS,” Burke said. “Wasting away in the prime of their life. For what? For having sex? It reminds me of that quote by Phillip K. Dick, about people being punished entirely too much for what they did, for wanting to play. And that gradually disappearing pile of candy, if you think of it as a tribute to a dying man, so sweet and sad, it is a bit emotional. And you lose that in a blind test. $456,000? Well, all right, I guess I don’t know. But you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
“He doesn’t want to get caught up in all the bullshit,” I said.
“Sure,” Burke said. “And I understand that. It’s a crazy world when you think that money could have bought AIDS medicine for 500 orphans in Africa and instead it got spent on candy. But life is bullshit, Danny. For all your guff about art, you strike me as a man that understands that. If you cut all the bullshit out of life, what are you left with?”
Burke waited for an answer. To give him credit, I think he was honestly giving me a chance to respond. Charming guy. Came across as really genuine, like he actually cared about my friend who he’d never met. Smart and perceptive. Spoke slowly, with confidence. Warm. Right at that moment I realized he was cheating on his wife. And once I knew he had to be doing it, it was suddenly very easy to realize how. It had been in front of my face the whole time.
“Anyway,” he said, “I better get back. Take care buddy.”
“Okay,” I said.
He went back inside and the door closed behind him. When I reached for the knob I realized there wasn’t one. He’d locked me out. I laughed once, and it felt like a good release. I put my hand in my pocket and walked whistling up to Front Street.
29
When I got back to my office the phone rang. It was Tina. And she was crying.
“Was Dean with you last night?” she asked.
This inquiry really showed how nice and open Tina is. The typical wife who was worried her husband was cheating on her would not have asked the question in this fashion. She’d have said, “What were you up to last night?” in a fake cheery voice. Or she’d say: “Did you and Dean find any leads last night?” She wouldn’t ask it in such a way that would immediately let me know that I should lie to cover for Dean.
So I didn’t answer. Instead I just asked: “Tina, what’s the matter?”
Another thing that showed what a nice person Tina was: she let it pass when I didn’t answer the question. Most women who think they’ve been cheated on are like one of those little annoying dogs that won’t give you the Frisbee back after you throw it to them.
“He’s just so distant from me,” she said. “It was supposed to be better when we came from California. But now it’s just way worse with this stupid investigation. He’s just so obsessed with it. And he barely touches me anymore. He doesn’t look at me in the same way. I feel so fat and ugly.”
“Tina, you’re a total babe,” I said. “Take my word for it. Look, I’ll talk to Dean about it.”
“No!” she said. “You can’t tell him I called.”
“Why not?” I said. “He won’t be mad. I guarantee he doesn’t even know how upset you are.”
“Of course he knows,” she said. “He just doesn’t care.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t Tina.”
“Well then don’t tell him,” Tina said. “I just thought he was so nice. He wasn’t a dog like other men, always treating me like a piece of meat, always chasing around after other women. He was so polite and reserved. But now he’s gone so cold. It’s like he’s not really here, he’s always somewhere else. Tell me the truth Terrell: is there another woman?”
“No,” I said. “There’s no other woman.”
“Are you sure?”
“How could I be sure? Maybe he’s banging his secretary. If you want I can refer you to a private eye and they can follow him around. But I think that would be a waste of money. You said it yourself. He’s not like other guys. He’s having a tough year at work. That’s all it is. Okay?”
After a pause, she said in a very small voice: “Okay.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to call him?”
“No! I mean, yes, I’m sure, no I don’t want you to call him.”
“Well, all right. But keep your chin up Tina. It will be all right, I promise.”
“Okay,” she said. “Thanks Terrell. Come over and visit sometime.”
“I will.”
“I don’t have any friends in Toronto; it would be good to see you.”
“I’ll be there sometime soon, for sure,” I said. “Take care.”
I hung up and called Dean.
“Hey bud,” he said. “What’s up?”
“I’m not supposed to be calling you,” I said. “Tina just called me. She asked me if we were working together last night.”
“Why’d she call you?” Dean asked.
“Well, I think she’s worried you’re cheating on her.”
“Why’s she worried about that?” Dean asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Have you been going out nights?”
“I’ve just been working late on some things.”
“What are you working on?”
“Lawyer stuff,” he said. “I’ve still got to work my regular job here.”
And I wondered: did Dean just blow me off?
“Okay,” I said, a bit hesitantly.
“Anyway,” Dean said, “maybe she’s right. I should spend more time at home.”
“Are you feeling okay?” I asked.
“Well, I’ve felt better if that’s what you mean,” he said. “I’ll be okay. I can do this. I should just get my head straight. Maybe you should come over for dinner.”
“Sure, I’d like that. Are you free tonight?”
“Well, I’ve got a work thing,” Dean said.
“Some other time I guess,” I said.
“You know, you could just go visit Tina too. She doesn’t have many friends in Toronto yet.”
I grimaced, but I said: “Well, we’ll see.”
“Okay, I’ll leave it to you. Let’s talk soon buddy. Take care.”
“Yeah, you too,” I said, and hung up.
30
On the way home from work the next Monday I noticed I was being followed by a large black SUV, a Suburban. It wasn’t exactly being subtle about it. By the time I got back to my apartment building it was so close if I’d stepped on my brakes abruptly it would have hit me. I parked and got out of my car and the Suburban parked two spots over.
I walked right up to it. The man that hopped out was a little taller than average, although not by much. He was not so much muscular as defined, cut like a diamond. Tendons formed hard lines under his skin. He was wearing a pair of very dark sunglasses and non-descript clothes that looked like they came from The Gap.
“Can I help you dude?” I said.
I meant to throw him off a bit, but he didn’t say anything at all for a minute. His posture was very relaxed.
“Because, you know, you were following pretty ….”
“I’m here to ask about a doctored comic book you tried to pass off as genuine
,” he said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
He smiled an empty, knowing smile.
“Don’t you know lying just makes it worse?” he said. “The alterations to that comic book were designed to increase its value by tens of thousands of dollars. That makes you guilty of fraud over $5,000, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years. Now, you won’t get that much up here, of course, but you also attempted that crime in the state of Florida. They’re a little sterner on the sentences down there. And you’re an American citizen.”
“Are you talking about the comic we sent to CQC?” I said. “Fucking get real. The whole point of CQC is to grade comics.”
“You made a deliberate attempt to fool CQC.”
“No I didn’t,” I said.
“Well, someone did. Where did you get the comic from?”
“I’m not telling you,” I said. As I turned to go he darted forward and shoved my shoulder. It didn’t look like much but there was a lot of force behind the short little blow and I lost my footing and stumbled down to the ground. “Hey,” I said.
The guy took off his glasses and that’s when I got scared. His eyes were very clear, almost colorless, and they were weak. He was blinking even in the dim light of the afternoon. But he was still very calm and quiet. There was absolutely no ‘fight or flight’ in his eyes, no adrenaline, no excitement. Pure business.
“I don’t think you understand,” he said.
“Smile!” someone called. It was Dean. He was walking towards us across the parking lot, holding up his phone. Then he stopped and started fiddling with it.
The guy crossed the distance to Dean in a few big strides, ripped the phone out of Dean’s hands and threw it on the ground.
“Hey,” Dean said. “My fucking phone.”
“No pictures,” the guy said.
“Well,” Dean said. “I already e-mailed it to myself. So I’m not sure why you had to smash my phone.”
I staggered up to my feet and hurried over.
“I know who you are,” the guy said. “Mr. Mann.”
“Well,” Dean said. “You’ve got me at a disadvantage. Who are you?”
“That’s not important,” the guy said.
“You sure as shit aren’t a private detective,” Dean said. “You remind me of the guys we had guarding us when we were visiting gold mines in Tanzania. Are you ex-military? Blackwater?”
“I think you need to stop asking questions and start think about the kind of trouble you could get yourself in.”
“Are you threatening me?” Dean said. “If so, cool. You can have my wallet.”
“I don’t want your wallet.”
“Do you want information? Because if you’re threatening me, I’ll tell you whatever you want. I’ll tell you I wear women’s underwear if it makes you happy. Then I’ll call the cops. As soon as I can find a payphone.”
The guy still looked calm, but disgusted.
“Don’t like lawyers, do you?” Dean said.
“No,” he said. “I don’t.”
“Well, I guess that’s why you came here first,” Dean said.
“You know, you could get in a lot of trouble with the law society for submitting comics that you suspected …”
“Oh, that he suspected now,” I said.
The guy looked at me and I fell silent.
“Then call them,” Dean said. “Go ahead and call them. I got your license plate in that picture, by the way. I take it the comic was significantly restored?”
The guy didn’t say anything.
“Would you believe that’s what we wanted to know?” Dean asked.
“So tell me where you got it,” the man said. “This isn’t a joke.”
“No, it sure isn’t,” Dean said. “You’re up here assaulting people? In daylight? They’re freaking out down there, aren’t they? Maybe we could help each other out?”
The guy smiled again. “You guys have a nice day,” he said, and went back to his car. Dean and I were careful to get out of the way when he drove out.
“Jesus,” I said. “That guy was intense.”
“I agree.”
“10,000 mile stare.”
“Affirmative,” Dean said, smiling a little.
“Do they do that every time they get a restored comic?”
“Nope,” Dean said. “I’ll bet you they don’t. They pulled out the big guns for this one.”
“Do you think the same thing happened to Brucie?” I said. Thinking: Maybe that guy is the murderer!
“Jesus, Terrell,” Dean said. “We know for a fact it didn’t happen because the clerk at the store told you he didn’t know Brucie’s real name.”
“Oh yeah,” I said.
“Anyway, I’m sure you’re wondering how I knew to come here.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Peter called me. Apparently that dude scared our names out of him. So I thought I’d stop by to warn you in person. Guess I showed up at the right time.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And it looks like we’re back on the case.”
“No kidding,” he said, and looked at the wreckage of his phone. “The disbursements on this file are nothing to sneeze at.”
31
The next morning Dean called and asked me whether I’d drive out to Over The Boards and have a chat with Mr. Ha.
“I was thinking about going with you,” Dean said. “But here’s the thing. I’m sort of working my way in with Vasily now.”
“Like how?” I asked.
“Well, scalping tickets for one thing.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah,” Dean said. “Right on Monday he e-mailed me to say he had some tickets for sale. I sent an e-mail around to everyone at the firm. No takers, so I knocked the price down and blew them out, then I made up the difference with Jay’s money.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “Now Vasily loves me. He’s started e-mailing me about selling ‘used’ iPods, or trying to get people to invest in his schemes. The guy is a complete hustler. So, anyway, I’ve been thinking, Vasily doesn’t know that I know you, right?”
“We showed up at poker together.”
“But we didn’t sit together. And we left at different times.”
“Okay,” I said.
“And when you went to visit Ha the first time, I wasn’t there either.”
“So?”
“So, maybe you should go see Mr. Ha on your own. Look, we know that Vasily and Ha know each other. I just think it’s best for Ha to not know that I’m part of this investigation. That way he can’t tell Vasily about me.”
“Okay,” I said. “What do you want me to say?”
“Just tell him the truth. That we bought a comic that was submitted through his store and that he sold online and it came back restored. He needs to tell us who submitted it.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Great. And call me right after, I’m really curious about this one.”
I was at Over The Boards before lunch. As soon as Derek Ha laid eyes on me, I think he knew. He stiffened, his smile dropping away, and he looked back quickly to the family he was talking with. I wandered around the store, browsing through jerseys and studying signed photographs. For the first little while, Derek ignored me, but after about ten minutes I think it got unbearable for him, so he came over and said: “Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s about the comic stuff again. Are you okay to talk here or do you want to go somewhere more private?”
He opened his mouth to say something, maybe that he had nothing to hide, or he resented the accusation or something like that, but then he closed it and turned around and walked away. I followed him through a door at the back into a little storeroom office, with big shelves crammed with boxes and a little desk with an old beige desktop computer.
Ha closed the door and looked at me.
“I bought an issue of Incredible Hulk #181 at Paradise Comics for
$6,000.” I said. “Previously, it had been sold on Heritage by this store, and it was submitted to CQC through this store’s account.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Ha interjected. He was speaking quickly and his whole bearing was stiff, like a little yappy dog. “That comic was probably submitted in hundreds of places over the world that year.”
“We popped it out of the box and sent it down to CQC …”
“Why would you do that?” Derek said.
“Never mind why,” I said. “It came back restored.”
“How do I know you didn’t restore it yourself after you took it out of the box?” Derek cried. “You can’t prove anything. I didn’t do anything wrong. Anyway, I’m not responsible for CQC’s rankings, or for my customers.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” Derek said. “Not in my store.”
“Keep your voice down,” I said. “Your customers can probably hear you.”
Derek fell silent. He was literally quivering with emotion.
“Not only did it come back restored,” I continued, “but CQC actually sent someone up to talk to me. Asking where the comic came from. For whatever reason, they were very, very concerned. Now, I didn’t tell them anything. I thought I could come here and we could sort this out.”
“So you’re blackmailing me?” he said.
“I want information,” I said. “Are you going to help me out here or not?”
He stared at me, still shaking with an emotion I thought was anger, and then his face crumpled like a baby’s and he started to cry.
“I can’t do this,” Derek sobbed. “I can’t go through this all again.”
“Go through what all again?”
“What do you want from me?” he asked. “What do you really want? I don’t have money, okay? I had to mortgage my home last time. Do you have any idea the kind of people you’re messing with? Do you know what they’ll do to me?”
His voice rose to a shriek during the last sentence.
I was so surprised I didn’t say anything. Which was too bad, because maybe that was the moment. Maybe if I’d pushed him then, I could have gotten the information out of him, and things would have been different for everybody. But we don’t always recognize those moments when they show up. Instead, I reached out to comfort him, to say, hey man, it’s all right. But he jerked away from my hand.
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