Never Play Another Man's Game

by Mike Knowles

  Ruby had lung cancer. To fight the disease, she had been going through radiation and chemo. The pamphlets listed hair loss as a possible side effect; the wigs confirmed it as a definite. I went back into the bathroom and looked at the wigs. Beside the three, there was a fourth Styrofoam head that was bald. This was the style that Ruby had chosen for the night. I pulled the folded piece of paper from my pocket, placed it in front of the head under a prepaid cell that I had bought the day before, and then I walked out the door.

  The next day, I tailed Ruby to Limeridge Mall. She drove a lot more carefully and checked behind her a lot more often after she had found my note, but it didn’t matter — I was able to stay far behind her because I had the advantage of knowing exactly where she was going. Ruby parked where I had told her to and went into the mall.

  I followed her inside and waited for her to sit down in the food court. From the second floor, I could see down into the dining area. Ruby sat alone for five minutes; she did nothing to signal anyone. She looked a lot like I remembered. But now, she looked more like the older sister of the petite Asian woman of my memories. She wore jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. On her shoulder, she carried a large leather purse. The jet-black wig she wore had been on the second Styrofoam head the night before. It must have been an expensive wig because I would have never noticed it was faux hair had I not been inside her house.

  I opened the matching disposable prepaid cell phone I had bought and dialled Ruby. I watched her react to the ring tone I set and then I watched her fish around in her purse for the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Meet me in the pet store on the second floor. Ask to hold the Shih Tzu.”

  “Wilson?” Out of her mouth, my name still carried the slight trace of the accent she could never seem to shake.

  I hung up and watched her realize that she was no longer speaking to me. She looked angrily at the phone and then put it away in the big bag. A few seconds later, Ruby was on her feet and on her way to the escalator. The second floor of the mall had stores on opposite sides with railings overlooking the floor below between them. I watched Ruby from the other side of the mall as she walked. She kept checking her blind spots, but I was never in them — I was walking in front of her the whole time on the opposite side. I watched through gaps in the crowd as her pace slowed. Ruby pulled out another cell phone, this one from a pocket, and began texting with one hand. Whatever the message was, it was brief. Ruby slid the phone back in her pocket and picked up the pace again. When she went into Petropolis, I went into a health food store on the other side of the mall. Through the glass, I watched her talk to the sales associate. The young girl walked away from her and Ruby looked around the store aimlessly until the dog appeared. Ruby was led to a bench next to a door leading to the back room of the pet store. Ruby held the dog for five minutes. I used the time to watch the store. I didn’t see anyone else giving the pet store any attention. Five minutes is a long time — if Ruby had a tail they would have at least done a few walk-bys. The old woman gave up on the dog and the meet when the puppy peed on her. I watched her hand the Shih Tzu back to the sales associate and stand up, obviously frustrated. The young saleswoman opened the door to the back room and took the puppy back to its cell. Ruby was still looking at the stain on her shirt when I took her by the arm and led her into the back room after the dog.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The sales associate came back around the corner — this time without a dog in her hands. I kept my hand on Ruby’s bicep and my eyes on the rest of her. My left hand produced a fifty, and the clerk took it without stopping.

  “Thanks, Becky,” I said.

  “Anytime.”

  The girl walked out to the sales floor leaving Ruby and me alone.

  “You can let go of me now,” Ruby said. Her voice set off the dogs in the cages around us. There were high-pitched barks and pathetic yelps everywhere.

  I pulled Ruby to another door. The back door of the store had a warning sign taped to it. Without a key, opening the door would set off an alarm and attract mall security. Becky had left the key in the lock — the reason why I had to pay fifty instead of twenty. We went through the door and ended up in a hallway. The hall ran behind every store in the second floor of the mall, and the businesses used it for taking garbage out. I pulled Ruby to the freight elevator and touched the down button. The door opened immediately and I shoved the old grifter inside. Her purse stayed with me in the hallway. I put the bag on the concrete floor and stepped into the elevator car with Ruby.

  “What the hell? Give me my purse, Wilson.”

  I shook my head and kept my body between her and the door. Most women keep their wallet in their purse, along with their keys and a little makeup. Ruby wasn’t most women; she was dangerous when I met her and I doubted she’d got soft in her old age. The bag stayed on the ground. Ruby’s little fists balled in frustration, but she stayed where she was. I hit the button with a faded number one in the centre and heard the doors close. When the elevator started moving to the first floor, I said, “How have you been, Ruby?”

  “You know how I’ve been. You broke into my house.”

  “I’m sorry about the cancer,” I said. I had no feelings about it, but it seemed like the thing to say.

  “Too many years sitting in that damn bingo hall.”

  I nodded. I remembered Ruby as an addict. Her disease was worse than being hooked on pills or the bottle. At least with substance abuse you get drunk or high and you get a break from the gnawing inside. With gambling there was no relief. Ruby gambled more when she was winning because she had to take advantage of the hot streak, and she kept on gambling when she was losing because she always thought she could make the money back. She’d play any game of chance that gave her the opportunity to win. I remembered going with my uncle to find her for a job. He drove us to a bingo hall, Ruby’s drug of choice. If I closed my eyes, I could still see the blue smoke hanging from the ceiling. If those conditions existed on a job site, Ruby would have had grounds for a lawsuit, but they didn’t happen on the job — they happened in a place Ruby chose to visit every night of the week. She sat there for hours with more cards than anyone should have been able to keep track of until the poison around the ceiling found a way into her cells.

  “You turned out just like him, you know.”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Your uncle. He would have searched the house too, but he wouldn’t have pulled a stunt like this. He knew who his friends were.”

  “And look where that got him,” I said.

  “I did what you told me. I met you at the mall, then at the pet store. I don’t deserve to be dragged around like this.”

  “Who’d you text, Ruby?”

  “What?”

  I pointed at her pocket. “When you were walking through the mall. On the phone in your pocket. Who did you text?”

  Ruby Chu laughed at me. It wasn’t the laugh of an enemy; it was a genuine sound. “My God, you are just like him. I texted my son, all right? That’s who I texted.”

  “I saw his picture. Seems a bit old to still be needing calls from his mommy.”

  The elevator door opened and Ruby reached around me and pressed the button for the second floor. I took a step back and stood in between the doors. I felt them touch me and then retract into their housing.

  “First of all,” Ruby said, “you’re never too old to get a call from your mother. And second, I had to let him know we were meeting.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted him to know that everything is going to be alright.”

  The doors tried to close again and for the second time, they bounced off my shoulders.

  “You have thirty seconds to get my attention. If you don’t, I’m gone and we never see each other again.”

  “I need a man for a job.”

  “Put an ad in the paper.”

  “I need a planner to set it up and oversee it. What your uncle used to do.”

  “He’s dead
,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “So he doesn’t do that anymore.”

  “You’re just like him. You could do it.”

  “I haven’t done that kind of work in a while.”

  Ruby nodded and crossed her arms. “I heard you went to work for the mob.”

  “It’s not that simple,” I said.

  “It never is, but I hear you don’t work for them anymore. Is that simple enough?”

  I nodded.

  “So you need a job.”

  “I’m not broke,” I said. It was the truth. I lost some money with the house, but I still had reserves stashed all over the city. Not enough to live on, but enough to coast for a while.

  “I don’t mean it that way. You need a job. What are you going to do? Retire? Get a real job? Settle down? We both know that isn’t going to happen. I’ve lived this life long enough to know that if you aren’t working a job, you’re looking for one. What else is there for people like us?”

  Thirty seconds had passed and I hadn’t moved. The door hit me a third time; a sensor must have been triggered because there was suddenly an annoying buzzer coming from the elevator. I stepped inside and the doors had luck on the fourth try.

  “You don’t know me, Ruby.”

  “No? I knew your uncle, and I see him in you. He couldn’t stop either.”

  “And it got him dead.”

  “So what was the alternative? You know what happens to the animals at Sea World when they get taken out of the ocean and put in those big tanks?”

  “They get a steady diet of fish and no one ever gets caught in a net again.”

  Ruby shook her head. “They get ulcers. Some of them have to go on a steady diet of antacids. Others start hurting themselves, or picking fights with a fish that will do it for them.”

  “But they stay alive.”

  “They’re not alive, they’re just waiting to die. Some just figure out how to make it happen faster than others. Working is dangerous, sure, but it’s our life. People like us were never meant to dance for sardines three times a day for a little safety. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better.”

  The doors opened on the second floor and Ruby’s purse was still there. I picked it up and pushed the button for the first floor. “We get a cup of coffee and talk the job over. If I think the job has legs, I’ll stick around. If the job is bullshit, no story about Flipper will make me stay. I’d rather jump for sardines than share a cell in the Kingston Pen.”

  Ruby reached into her pocket. I took the cell out of her hand the second she had it out.

  “I just want to tell my son what’s going on. He’ll worry.”

  “Concentrate on talking to me,” I said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  We sat in a small coffee house just down the street from a hospital near the mall. There were only four tables and a couch for the patrons. I drank black tea with milk while Ruby nursed a cup of green tea.

  “My son came to me with the job. A friend of his does maintenance for an armoured car company and my son found out that the trucks are going in one by one because of some repairs they need.”

  Ruby paused as though she were offering me a chance to ask a question. I said nothing and kept my face blank. I wanted Ruby to tell the story, the whole story, her way. She hadn’t started the way most people did. Most people start a job proposal with money. They tell you how much you’ll make right off the bat, so that you’re already spending it in your head while you hear the rest of the story. Greed makes people go against their better judgement; it makes people sign on to jobs they should have run from. Telling me about an inside man was a bad way to start. It showed that Ruby had no idea how much money was to be made. Worse, it was an immediate red flag. Inside knowledge meant there was already a civilian involved. Civilians are never part of a good job. Involving them increases the chances of failure exponentially and they are the first to squeal when the police sweat them at the station. Civilians have more to lose than professionals, so they’ll take whatever deal is on the table and feel no shame in it.

  “The company this guy works for,” Ruby went on, “they do some bank work, but they mostly do a lot of replenishing ATMs. Because one of the trucks is down each week for maintenance, they have been doubling up routes every Friday. One truck does its normal route, and then it’s supposed to drive back to the warehouse to load up for the second route. It’s a long double shift. Good money. The drivers doing the work decided that cutting out lunch and stuffing the truck with cash for both routes is worth the hassle. They rush the job so they can make it back to the warehouse for a Friday night poker game. They put in a few hours playing cards while they make time and a half and then punch out and go home.”

  She paused again. I said nothing.

  “So that’s it. We got a full truck rolling around ripe for the picking.”

  Ruby leaned back in her chair and took a sip of tea. She looked pleased with herself. Her smile slowly vanished when she saw that I didn’t share her enthusiasm.

  “C’mon, Wilson. It’s an armoured car filled to the brim. This should be right up your alley.”

  “You think this is right up my alley?”

  “It’s not? I remember hearing about a few armoured cars that ended up empty because of you and your —”

  I raised a finger. “First off, you got a tip on the maintenance schedule. How did you come by the information?”

  “I told you, my son knows a guy.”

  “How well does he know him? Better yet, how well does this guy know your kid?”

  Ruby didn’t say anything.

  “So, we’re going on second-hand information. What happens when the truck gets knocked over and the police turn up? And they will turn up. The cops will be looking hard at the employees, because the robbery is going to stink like an inside job. How else would someone know the exact right day and car to rob? They’ll have questions for everyone, especially the mechanic. Is this source cut into the deal? Does he have a reason to keep his mouth shut? More importantly, is he the kind of guy who can handle an interview with a cop without giving everything up?”

  Ruby didn’t say anything. She was quiet because she didn’t know the answers.

  “Second,” I said as I ticked off another finger. “Repairs to armoured trucks can’t last forever. Your boy found out presumably after the repairs had already started and it took you some time to find me. That leaves us with little time to plan and even less to get what we would need to do the job. Armoured car isn’t just a clever name, Ruby. They don’t break open easy and getting the necessary tools to bust the piggy bank is a hell of a lot tougher since 9/11. You start buying explosives through the wrong channels and you’ll be waving at the cops while the Mounties take you away.”

  I drank some of my tea, which was not as hot as I liked, and then raised a third finger. “Lastly, I didn’t hear a figure come out of your mouth. You just know that the truck has more money inside than usual. What’s usual? Will double cover the expenses and still make it worthwhile when we split up the take?”

  Ruby had stopped looking so pleased with herself. “You won’t do it, then?”

  “Jesus, Ruby, this isn’t like agreeing to help someone move. This has got bad idea written all over it. You don’t see that?”

  Ruby picked up her tea and then put it down without drinking any. She avoided making eye contact and tried to nonchalantly rub at her eyes.

  I drained the last of my lukewarm tea and put the cup down. “Ruby, you’re a grifter. You run cons and scams. What the hell are you doing going after an armoured car?”

  She stopped fidgeting and looked at me; her eyes were filled with tears just waiting to jump.

  “It’s my son. He needs the money.”

  “Tell me everything,” I said.

  “He’s into some people for a lot of money.”

  “Gambling?” I asked.

  Ruby looked at the floor and nodded. “Poker.” She was ashamed that her son ha
d inherited her vice.

  “How much?”

  Ruby shook her head. “Just under a hundred. He doesn’t have the money and neither do I. I already paid his debts once. The cancer took care of what I had left. I don’t have a drug plan and the medicine that makes me look so goddamn ravishing isn’t free. I’m pretty much down to the house and a few wigs.”

  Her kid being in debt made the whole deal even worse. People who owe big to bad people do stupid, unpredictable shit. Worse, you already know they’re a liability because smart people don’t get in over their heads with loan sharks.

  “So, he’s in deep and you’re cleaned out. His solution is to knock over an armoured car.”

  Ruby nodded. “I know it seems like a bad idea, but he’s desperate. The money is there and he’s going to do the job no matter what. I can’t stop my son; I lost control of him years ago. That’s why I gave him money the first time. I didn’t want him to get into more trouble, and I felt responsible. It was my fault he started gambling in the first place. I tried to talk him out of robbing the armoured car, but he won’t listen. I thought if I could get someone involved, someone like you, who knows what he’s doing, then maybe you could make it work. Make it so my son doesn’t go to jail, or worse.”

  “It’s got bad written all over it, Ruby. You’ve got a stake in it, but me — I’m not signing on for your kid.”

  “I can pay you to help plan the job. Like a consultant.”

  “Pay me how, Ruby? You said yourself that you don’t have any money, and I don’t have any faith in your boy being able to pay me after he does the job. Just let it go. Forget about me and start putting all your energy into talking your boy out of doing this job.”

  I got up and threw a five-dollar tip down on the table. If Ruby was as hard up as she said, she could steal it before she left.

  “Bye, Ruby.”

  I got to the door when I felt a hand on my arm. Ruby had a hell of a grip for a woman sick with cancer.

  “I can give you the house.”