Lucky Bastard (12 page)

But don’t try to tell that to Doug.

Doug’s a superstitious kid just north of twenty-one who fancies himself a gangsta rapper even though he’s Irish-Italian and grew up in Danville, a suburb that’s about as white as Wonder bread. He showed up in my office a couple of years ago out of the blue, looking for a job as an assistant private investigator. Said he always wanted to be a PI and that he could be my eyes and ears on the street, someone who knew what was going on and who could help me to keep on top of the news that doesn’t make it into the news.

I told him I worked alone and couldn’t afford an assistant even if I wanted one, but he went out and got himself an investigator’s license to prove his dedication and kept showing up at my office until I finally relented, though I told him I couldn’t pay him much and that I’d likely have to let him go after a month.

That was nearly two years ago. I’ve had Doug on my under-the-table payroll ever since.

For the most part, the information I get from Doug
doesn’t help me in either my private investigations or in my poaching, but I like him, despite his being as ignorant about luck as the rest of the masses. He’s kind of like a little brother or a loyal dog who wants to please me. I have to admit, when it comes to knowing what’s going on in the city, Doug
is
the man.

I find Doug on Market Street at Powell, eating an apple and talking to a couple of street peddlers across from the Westfield shopping center, where a year ago some guy pretending to be God told everyone to eschew their consumer lifestyles before he allegedly vanished into thin air. It turned out to be a hoax, but some people around here still believe it happened.

Doug spends most of his time hanging out on the streets downtown, talking to people and being friendly. It’s one of his most valuable traits. People tend to open up to others who offer a smile and a warm greeting and who come across as harmless and engaging. And although he often dresses like a cross between a circus clown and a ghetto drug lord, Doug is rather harmless.

Today, Doug’s wearing an oversize, throwback New York Jets jersey tucked into his baggy, yellow Dickies, which are held up just below his ass with a belt that has a buckle the size of New Jersey. On his feet are red Nike Jordans. On his head is a royal-blue Los Angeles Dodgers cap. Around his neck hangs a half-inch-thick gold medallion with the letters
BW
emblazoned upon it.

“Holmes!” he says, taking a bite of his apple, his face exploding in a smile, then morphing into concern. “What’s up with the hemoglobin on your threads?”

At first I don’t understand what he’s talking about, mostly because more often than not, I don’t understand what Doug’s saying. But then I look down and notice the blood covering my shirt.

“I cut myself shaving.”

“You need to use a mirror, Holmes. You didn’t break your mirror, did you?”

“No,” I say. “I’m good.”

“’Cause if you did, you can reverse the seven years of bad luck by turning seven times in a clockwise circle.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

Doug smiles and nods and raises his fist to me for a knuckle tap.

I used to try to explain to Doug that superstitions are ridiculous and that luck is like energy: It can’t be created or destroyed. But he argued that following his superstitions had kept him lucky all of his life, so he wasn’t going to stop.

I couldn’t tell him that the reason he’s lucky is because he was born that way.

When I tap Doug’s knuckles with my own, I get a slight burst of static energy. But Doug doesn’t notice. People who are born with good luck aren’t aware of the electric charge they give off.

I’ve known Doug was packing luck ever since I met him. Although I can only guess as to the quality of the grade, Doug’s got some pretty healthy stuff running through him. It’s what helps him to get the information he acquires and what keeps him from getting his ass kicked by the punks and the criminals who actually live on the street. And what’s given him that good fortune he attributes to his superstitions.

But even though I could use an infusion of good luck right now, I’d never poach from Doug.

“How’s it hanging, Holmes?” he says, taking a bite of his apple.

“Big and low.”

Which is what I say every time he asks me this, but for some reason it always cracks Doug up, causing him to giggle and snort and slap his knee.

Just up the block at Powell, tourists wait in line for the cable car, while a street preacher shouts into a megaphone that Jesus wants them to repent of their sins. And it will cost them only one dollar.

“So what’s the word, Dog?”

“It’s Bow Wow, Holmes.”

Doug used to go by Dog, a derivative of Doug, because he liked the expression
What up, dawg?
But then he realized people would say
What up, dawg?
even if they didn’t know his name, so he changed it to Bow Wow.

“Sounds more like a forizzle gangsta,” he says, pursing his lips and making a hand gesture that he apparently
thinks is smooth and edgy and indicative of his gangster-rap appeal. I don’t have the heart to tell him it’s the official Hawaiian sign for
hang loose
. “Know what I mean, Holmes?”

He doesn’t call anyone else Holmes. Just me. Because of the private investigator thing. I think it’s kind of sweet.

“Sorry, Bow Wow.”

“No worries, Holmes.” He pulls another apple out of his pocket and offers it to me.

“No thanks.”

“You sure? An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

“I’m good.”

“Just trying to keep you healthy,” he says, pocketing the apple.

“So what’s the word on the street, Bow Wow?”

“You on a new case, Holmes?” he says, lowering his voice.

Although Doug tends to be about as subtle as a money shot in a bad porno, he knows when to play it cool.

I nod. “But this one’s on the down-low. No one else can know about this.”

Not that I’m worried about Doug sharing the details of my questions with anyone, and I don’t need to remind him to keep things hush-hush, but he’s always under the impression that I’m perpetually dealing with nefarious criminals and shady characters and seductive women. So I play it up every now and then because I know it makes him feel like he’s involved in something exciting.

Of course, today’s turning out to be more like Doug’s imaginative musings than I’d like to admit.

Doug puts one hand over his heart. “I always got your back, Holmes.” He likes to think of himself as my Dr. Watson. “So what info you lookin’ to find?”

“You hear any word on the street about luck poachers?”

“Luck poachers?” His eyes grow wide. He looks left and right as if someone might be listening in on our conversation. “Snap! You looking to score some luck, Holmes?”

“No,” I say, though I actually am. “I was just wondering if you might have heard anyone talking about the latest luck gossip. Something going down. New luck poachers in town. Anything out of the ordinary.”

He looks left and right over his shoulders, then steps in a bit closer. “You hear of a guy named Tommy Wang?”

“Wong.”

“What?”

“Wong,” I say. “It’s Tommy Wong.”

“So you heard of him.”

I just nod.

“Anyway,” he says, “this Tommy Wong is apparently some sort of Chinese gangsta badass, and he’s been buyin’ up as much luck as he can get hold of. Hiring poachers from out of town and puttin’ ’em on his payroll. No one knows who they are, but rumor has it a bunch of ’em have moved into town.”

Which pretty much confirms my suspicions about Scooter Girl. Apparently, Tommy’s not only contracting
luck poachers but bringing them into my territory. I wonder how many more of them there are. And how the hell I’m going to get rid of them.

Just add it to my list of Things to Do.

“You ever seen a luck poacher, Holmes?”

I shake my head and do my best impersonation of someone who’s telling the truth. “Not that I know of.”

“I seen one.”

“Is that so?”

“Word. Saw this dude cruisin’ past the Orpheum the other night, checking out the scene. He was a tall, white dude. And when I say white, I don’t mean Conan O’Brien white. We’re talking creepy-dude white. Like he’s allergic to the sun.”

“You mean an albino?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Dude was freaky.”

“How did you know he was a poacher?”

“I just knew, Holmes. I just knew.”

I don’t know who this guy was, but no respectable poacher would be caught hanging out by the Orpheum. You don’t tend to find a lot of good luck in the Tenderloin. More likely you’re going to find a lot of drug addiction and failure. And I’m not putting any stock in Doug’s ability to identify poachers, considering he has one standing right in front of him. Still, if Tommy’s hiring poachers and bringing them into the city, I suppose anything’s possible.

“You know what, Holmes?” Doug leans in even closer.
“I hear that if a poacher takes your luck, it’s like he’s taking your soul.”

So much for Doug’s powers of perception.

“I had no idea,” I say.

Doug gives a single nod, slow and solemn. Like a little kid silently admitting to something he’s done. “I also heard that if you carry a rabbit’s foot or some sort of lucky charm, it keeps poachers away.”

“Kind of like garlic and vampires?”

“Word. You ever seen a vampire, Holmes?”

“No.”

“Me neither,” he says, sounding disappointed. “But I always carry this, just in case.”

Doug reaches inside his shirt and pulls out something on a cord that’s hanging around his neck. I think it’s going to be a bulb of garlic or a silver cross or a vial of holy water, but when he opens his hand, there’s a brass ring the size of a rolled-up condom in his palm.

“Had this since my dad gave it to me when I was ten,” he says. “Just before he died. Got it from the carousel at the boardwalk in Santa Cruz. Told me I should always reach for the brass ring.”

My father always told me I needed to develop brass balls.

“Anyway,” he says, “I always keep it on me. Not for vampires, but just, you know, for good luck.”

In the United States, people kiss crosses and carry around a rabbit’s foot for good luck, which obviously wasn’t very lucky for the rabbit, while in other countries,
people attempt to control and enhance their good fortune through all sorts of ridiculous behaviors.

In Russia, carrying a fish scale in your purse or wallet is considered good luck.

In Germany, the spotting of a chimney sweep in traditional garb is regarded as fortuitous.

In Scandinavia, trolls are thought to be lucky.

Which I find kind of confusing. I always thought trolls lived in caves or mounds or under bridges and ate billy goats or little children. Not really sure what’s so lucky about that. Unless you’re a troll.

Others believe luck can be created by looking for opportunities, listening to their intuition, using the power of positive thinking, and adopting a resilient attitude. Which is more ridiculous than carrying around a fish scale in your wallet.

“You carry any good-luck charms?” asks Doug, putting the brass ring back inside his shirt.

“No.” But with the way today is shaping up, I’m beginning to wonder if I should.

“Can’t hurt, Holmes. You don’t want some dude walking up to you and fleecing your mojo.”

Yeah, well, too late for that.

“Thanks for the advice, Bow Wow,” I say, giving him another knuckle tap.

He smiles and tells me to stay cool and flashes some kind of gangsta peace sign that looks more like he’s got a rash he’s trying not to scratch.

“Don’t step on any cracks, Holmes.”

I’m just about to turn away and find out what it’s like to have my personal space back when Doug leans in again.

“Oh, one other thing. Word on the street is that this Tommy Wong has offered to pay half a million to any poacher who brings him something called Pure. You have any idea what that means?”

“No,” I say, playing dumb. “I have no idea.”

W
hen I was little, my grandfather used to tell stories about famous poachers throughout history who stole luck from the likes of Napoleon, JFK, and the captain of the
Titanic
. Sometimes he’d make up stories just to entertain us and make us laugh. Other times he’d tell us cautionary tales about poachers who gave in to temptation and greed. Who took the wrong path and ended up addicted to good luck or infected with bad luck.

Guess I should have paid more attention to that one.

But the story I remember most was the one he told about something he liked to call the Holy Grail of poaching. The cleanest form of luck you could find. Untainted by the corruption of the soul. As white and soft as the clouds of heaven and more powerful than the highest-quality top-grade soft.

Pure.

He would speak of it with this look of absolute joy, as
if just by talking about it he could imagine how it would feel to have that kind of luck flowing through him. When I asked him once if he’d ever poached Pure, the spark went out of his eyes and he looked at me with an expression that was a combination of longing and disgust.