“A high-maintenance loser,” adds Anosh.
“What do you care what she thinks about me?”
“It reflects poorly on the whole group,” says Baby Bourque.
“I disagree. I bet she’s over there thinking that I’m a guy who knows what he wants. I bet she loves it. Women love that in men.”
“That woman is working for tips. She doesn’t want to bring you your special-order no-cost water.”
“She’s fine. They like having things to do.”
“Either way, she’s smoking hot, isn’t she?” Anosh says.
Yannick looks across the patio and watches the waitress lean forward over the bar, her short black dress riding high up the backs of her thighs.
“Hear how she liked the shirt,” says Anosh. “What did I tell you about this shirt, Yannick? Didn’t I tell you it was killer?”
“Yeah, and didn’t I tell you I don’t give a shit about your shirt?” says Yannick.
“You’ve got no shot with her, Anosh,” says Baby Bourque. “You’re batting out of your league.”
“Of course I’ve got a shot. She was practically throwing herself at me.”
“She was being courteous. If she’s going home with anyone here, it won’t be you. I built up a rapport with her long before you even got here. A real rapport.”
“I thought you were seeing … Lisa? Leslie?” says Yannick.
“Lucie. And I am. But I’m on Time Zone Regulation here. Fidelity doesn’t extend beyond time zones. That’s … you know … a rule.”
Yannick finishes what’s left of his drink and laughs.
“No no, it’s a thing,” says Baby Bourque. He looks to his brother for help. “Weigh in here, Mike.”
“It’s a thing,” says Bourque.
“Yeah, everyone knows about Time Zone Regulation, Yannick,” says Anosh. “I’m sure his girlfriend Lisa knows all about it too. I’m sure she knows it and is fucking half the expats in Dubai right now.”
Baby Bourque retains his smile, broadens it even. “Now that there, that’s your jealousy talking, Anosh. It’s a bad look on you.”
“Jealous? Of a Bourque? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“Hey, shut up, both of you,” says Yannick. He leans back into the bench, closer still to the edge, and lets himself feel the alcohol humming through his bloodstream.
“So you guys still working on Steingruber?” Baby Bourque asks.
Baby Bourque does the same kind of work Yannick and Anosh do. But he does it in Dubai. For a sovereign wealth fund.
“We’re getting there,” says Yannick.
“You’ve really gotta think about getting out of Toronto. You’re giving up at least fifty grand off your salary by being here.”
“Yeah, but I’ve only got a few more years. Freedom Forty.”
“Still singing that song, huh?”
“And I’ll be singing it on my deck chair by the lake with a beer in my hand.”
He can picture Bayfield. The lake, the dock, his house, and always, in his imaginings, it’s evening. A warm, quiet, perfect summer evening. Maybe Lou will come out sometimes—when Karen’s in the city or visiting her parents or somewhere else. Lou would like it in Bayfield. She likes the quiet. They can sit together by the water, listening to the loons, watching clouds pass by.
“Come off it, Yan.”
“What?”
“You’re never gonna quit. Nobody quits. Not when the casino’s still open.”
But the casino’s never going to close, that’s the problem. At least not in Yannick’s lifetime. Beyond that, in the future … who knows? Maybe the political table-banging gets loud enough or the economics get bad enough … and this heyday gets brought to an end. Maybe the world starts to look different. Sure, someday the casino will shut its doors. It can’t go on like this forever. But these are concerns outside of his timeframe. For now the doors are open, the game is on, and Yannick knows how to win. He’s not the best-ever player, he’s no legend, not a top dog, raking in billions, but he has figured out how to build a tidy pile, a little bigger each year. And the real win, the big win, will come when he takes his little pile and pulls out of the game. Freedom Forty, that’s the win.
“I will quit.”
“You won’t.”
“Hey, Jay, how ’bout you fuck off anyway,” says Bourque, the elder. “Toronto’s great. No greater city.”
Baby Bourque waves a hand at the skyline, at the CN Tower that dominates it, in cheerful contempt. “No greater city? Than Toronto? Are you out of your fucking mind? Look at this place. Even its landmarks are lame. Look at that tower … it’s so much smaller than I remember.”
“That’s because you’ve gotten used to that alien atrocity in Dubai,” says Bourque.
“The CN Tower is way better looking. Straightforward. A to-the-point kind of design. And the highest in the world till those cocksuckers in Dubai went and built that fucking burg.”
“It’s burj, idiot. And it’s not just Dubai that broke the height record. A bunch of cities have shattered Toronto. The CN Tower isn’t even top five anymore.”
The four of them look at the tower, its LED display a vertical line of red, a moment of quiet around the table.
“Can’t believe you’re making us go up that tourist trap Sunday, Yan,” says Baby Bourque. “I haven’t been up there in ages.”
It’s an absurd venue for a baptism reception. Yannick couldn’t agree more. They landed with this absurd choice because Yvie did the choosing. Karen, after reading somewhere that giving kids a sense of agency helps them develop leadership skills, asked the kid where she wanted to go for lunch after her baptism. But the kid is three and can’t name lunch spots off the top of her head. So she took a look around—they happened to be on Queen St. at the time—and she spotted the CN Tower, one of the few landmarks she recognizes. Stupidest decision-making Yannick has ever been a part of.
“Making you go?” he says. “Who’s making you? You don’t have to come. I don’t even wanna go.” He takes a healthy gulp of his chilled vodka.
“Well, I’m obviously coming. It’s a baptism. I’m not gonna not go to a baptism you invited me to. What kind of Catholic d’you take me for?”
Yannick looks at Baby Bourque, at depraved and deviant Baby Bourque, whom he’s seen engage in unsavoury, unholy shit. “A lapsed Catholic. That’s what I take you for. I’ve personally seen you transgress, like, half the commandments.”
Baby Bourque, whose idea of fidelity doesn’t extend across time zones; who coveted, then solicited one call girl after another when they all lived together in NYC; who, on more than one busy Saturday night, shoplifted a two-six of rye from a liquor store because he’s “not about to wait in line like some asshole.”
“Ah, but I always repent,” says Baby Bourque, his arms spread out wide atop the tempered glass railing.
“Convenient setup.”
“True again. The Lord is very convenient,” he says. And then, adopting the rhythms and tone of a Southern preacher: “You have got to recognize the light of the Lord, brother. Let the light of the Lord warm your sinning soul.” He’s up on his feet now, arms raised above his head. “Humble yourself before the light. Admit there are powers in this world that are greater than you and about which you know not. And salvation is yours.”
This unexpected display draws appreciative laughter—and an amen—from the neighbouring tables. As Baby Bourque gives his audience a nod, his brother says, “Forget it, Jay. Yan’s a fucking heathen.”
Baby Bourque settles back down on the bench and shakes his head. “Bad policy to be an atheist, Yan. You’re not hedging your bets.”
Yannick looks around for allies, for anyone reasonable, anyone not poisoned by faith. He turns to Anosh, who says, “Don’t look at me, man. I’m a Zoroastrian. My ass is covered.”
“Ah, now lookie here, speaking of God’s gifts …” says Baby Bourque.
The waitress has returned with a fresh bottle of vodka on ice … along
with Bourque’s sparkling lemon-wedged water. After she sets her offerings on the table, Baby Bourque stands up, and with a hand set gently on her lower back whispers something to her, something that makes her first gasp then laugh. “You too, sweetheart,” she says and … oh, here we go … even winks.
“What’d you say to her?” Anosh asks.
“Private joke. What did I tell you, buddy? Rapport.”
“Well I got fifty bucks says I get her number.” Anosh plucks a fifty out of his wallet and slams it on the table.
So Baby Bourque reciprocates with a fifty of his own. “I’ll take your money.”
It’s like they’ve both forgotten that the waitresses are paid to pretend they’re into assholes. Every guy thinks he’s the exception. None is. Yannick reaches into the pocket of his jacket for a bill and says, “My money says you both strike out.”
Anosh bats first. He flattens out his blue shirt and heads over to the bar, where the waitress is waiting on drink orders. Yannick watches his approach. She smiles, of course, but not before a flash of annoyance appears and then disappears.
“Whoa, hey, wait a minute, what the fuck is this?” Baby Bourque is saying. He’s flapping one of the bills over the table. An Iraqi banknote: 250 dinars. “Hahaha, let me guess, you’re invested in Iraqi dinars, too.”
“Your brother gave me that,” says Yannick. “He’s been pimping the cause.”
So talk turns to the Iraqi dinar scheme all over again, and to Mother Bourque who is enmeshed in it, and how Baby Bourque has maybe, probably, hopefully, finally convinced her that the scheme is bogus.
“It’s bullshit that she listens to you and not to me,” says Bourque with an expression that is dangerously close to an actual fucking pout. “What do you know about Iraq anyway? The UAE doesn’t even border Iraq.”
“I’ve got an Iraqi doorman.”
Yannick weaves the banknote through his fingers, this worthless piece of paper. “Iraqi dinars. What a ridiculous scheme.”
But Baby Bourque just shrugs and gulps down his vodka. “All schemes are ridiculous. Until you get someone to bite.”
“But this is … seriously unscrupulous shit.”
“It’s all unscrupulous shit. Unscrupulous is our ethos.”
“Oh come on. These guys are selling junk they know is junk and telling a bunch of vulnerable idiots—no offence to your mother—it’s gold.”
“So what? If enough people believe it’s gold, the price goes up—turns into gold.”
“Yes, thank you, Jay, for explaining the rudiments to me,” says Yannick, yawning over his drink.
“But does that make the scheme any more or less scrupulous? If the dinar does appreciate dramatically—”
“But it’s not going to.”
“Of course it’s not going to. But if it does, does that retroactively make the scheme more scrupulous? All kinds of people sell all kinds of shit all the time. If you get enough people to believe in your shit, it’s not shit anymore. Then it’s just the system. That’s how finance works. There’s nothing more unscrupulous about this scheme than any other. You know this, Yan.”
“I know you’re talking out of your ass.”
“Am I?”
Yannick feels himself on unsteady ground. He’s not good with moral questions. He doesn’t make the rules, or even question them; he just plays by them. And there are rules. It’s not the Wild West—there are industry parameters, which someone has presumably considered and set. Questions about the morality of his work only come up when someone else raises them. Usually Babylon Ben–types. That communist lunatic, he used to lurch toward the topic on occasion. The guy reads a few articles about the finance sector and thinks he’s an expert. But Ben has no idea what Yannick actually does. He doesn’t understand that Yannick is out there raising capital for investment, improving the efficiency of companies, earning healthy returns for his investors—not just millionaires and billionaires, but pension funds, unions. The very unions Babylon Ben likes to blow his load over … who’s ensuring their pension funds deliver? When the unions want to park their money and watch it grow, while they kick back and do absolutely dick-all, it’s guys like Yannick, not Ben, who make magic happen.
“You’re talking out of your ass, Jay. There’s a … like a moral distinction here. These dinar guys are con artists. They’re frauds.”
“We’re all frauds,” Baby Bourque says, reverting to his Southern preacher schtick. “We are a depraved species. Sinners every one of us. That is our God-given nature. Would you fight against your God-given nature? What damning pride would have you fight against the Lord’s most sacred creation?” He pauses to sip his vodka. “And what, I ask you, is more conspicuous in human nature than the good old-fashioned, God-given urge to plunder? That is our design, brother. Since the beginning, we have been taking what we can while we can.”
Yannick can’t help taking the bait; it keeps him from feeling his exhaustion, or looking over the edge of the railing. “Jay, can you even hear the words you’re saying right now? We’re not living in the goddamn jungle. How is this any way to think about a functioning society?”
“A functioning society?!”
“Yeah. We’re still living in one of those last I checked. So why are you raving like an end-of-days lunatic? Dubai must be fucking with your head, buddy. You’ve gone off the rails.”
“A functioning society? Whoa, Yan, you are looking at this all wrong.” Baby Bourque grabs the dinar banknote from Yannick’s hands and flattens it out on the table. He points to the image on the back of the bill, the structure and accompanying tower, the squat spiral tower Yannick noticed the other day. “You know what this is?”
“It’s a banknote.”
“I know it’s a banknote, asshole. I mean, this … this right here? This mosque.”
“I guess it’s a mosque then.”
“That’s right. It is a mosque. Not just any mosque. The Great Mosque of Samarra. Built sometime in the ninth century.”
“We’re getting a history lesson now?” says Bourque.
“Yeah that’s right. You’re getting a fucking history lesson, Mike. You wanted to know what I know about Iraq. Here’s something I know. I know that this mosque right here, this was the highlight of a whole region for hundreds of years. Now it’s defunct, but for hundreds of years, it was a fucking focal point. They say the caliph used to ride his donkey up and down the spiral of the minaret. Meditative practice. And the imams, they used to walk all the way up to the top of the tower before prayer time, and from there, they’d send out the call to prayer. Sacred shit.”
“So what,” says Yannick.
“So you know what the minaret’s been used for lately?”
“What’s it been used for lately?” says Yannick, growing impatient with the instructive turn of the conversation.
“Sniper post. A fucking sniper post. For American soldiers.”
“Okay.”
“Think about that. The Americans sent troops to the top of the tower. Just decided to use a sacred religious site as a strategic military position.”
“So? That’s what happens in war, isn’t it?”
“You might not get this, Yan, being a heathen and all, but the desecration of religious sites is a war crime, as far as I’m concerned. So you can imagine that this pissed the insurgents off, seeing foreign soldiers fucking around on their sacred sites. Oh it pissed them off something fierce. So what’d they do? They attacked the tower. Bombed it, fired at it, usual rebel shit. We’re talking about something that’s supposed to be a world heritage site. It’s on the banknotes, for fuck’s sake. Instead it gets put to whatever strategic use it can serve, it gets bombed, then it gets abandoned. The US troops, of course, they moved right on when they were done with it. But the minaret is damaged now. Rundown and crumbling. Just like everything else, man. Because that’s human nature. We take what we want and leave a shit pile behind.”
“What is your point here, Jay?” asks Yannick.
; “My point is … take a look around, man. It’s not just Iraq, it’s everywhere. There is no functioning society anymore. Things are hanging together by tethers. And everyone knows it. Everyone who’s not a total idiot. Best you can do now is grab what you can on the way out. We are down to stripping the world for parts.”
He finishes his vodka in one big gulp and stands. Because incoming is Anosh, withdrawing from the waitress with a quick step and a scowl. He slumps into the booth beside Yannick.
“How’d it go, Don Juan?” asks Baby Bourque.
“Whatever. She’s fucking racist. Probably never touched a brown man in her life.”
“She can smell your desperation, buddy. It’s not a good scent.” Baby Bourque smoothes down the sides of his hair with both hands. “Now better fish out some real money, Yan. I don’t deal in dinars.”
Yannick watches him glide across the patio toward the waitress, whom he greets with an easy smile.
10
AS THE CITY spins past the taxi window, Yannick’s thoughts circle the spiralling minaret in Samarra. He got carried away at Blitz. Two bottles quickly turned to three, and he’s sure he had the lion’s share of each. With the Bourques egging him on, he didn’t stand much of a chance. He’s trashed.
To keep from passing out in the back of the cab, he looks up the mosque on his phone to fact-check Baby Bourque’s little history lesson. He’s got a lingering feeling the guy might be full of shit. He scrolls through a few articles, blowing up the text size so it’s easier to read the letters swimming in front of his eyes, and … huh, all right, there it is, the Great Mosque of Samarra, just like Baby Bourque said. Once the focal point of the whole region, just like Baby Bourque said. With a minaret-turned-sniper post, just like Baby Bourque said.
He zooms in on the image—the Malwiya minaret, he learns. It’s not even so high. Not heaven-high. But at 52m, it’s high enough that you’d die if you fell from it. Which, after a further tour through the gallery of images, seems very possible. No railing along the outer edges of the pathway that spirals up the tower. A sheer drop. You’d have to be mental to walk up and down this pathway. Those imams and caliphs and their donkeys or whatever the fuck, going up and down, up and down … all mental. If he were forced up and down that spiralling tower as part of his daily grind … well, at some point that jump-urge that pounds in his cells would win out. He’d throw himself into a glorious, carefree swan dive, headfirst into the desert.
The Towers of Babylon Page 25