Lucky Bastard (21 page)

I never was good at breaking bad news.

“The fact that you’re apparently working for Tommy makes you an accessory to conspiracy, racketeering, fraud, extortion, bribery, kidnapping, and possibly murder.”

“Is that all? What about global warming?”

“This isn’t a joking matter,” says Barry. “So you might want to change your attitude before you make things worse for yourself.”

Honestly, why is everyone I’m meeting today channeling my father?

The late-afternoon sunlight outside the sedan is replaced by the artificial lights of the Broadway Tunnel as we hurtle under Russian Hill toward North Beach. I don’t know how long this ride is going to last or where I’m going to end up when they decide to let me out, and I know I should be concerned. But when you’ve got 100 percent top-grade good luck pumping through your system, everything seems to take on a Bobby McFerrin quality.

Don’t worry. Be happy.

Still, I realize I need to make a play here. Come up with something that will get Barry off my back and allow me to
focus on dealing with Tommy. And keep Mandy from getting hurt.

“Tell you what,” I say. “Let’s make a deal.”

“What do I look like?” says Barry. “A game show host?”

“Actually,” I say to Elwood, “I think he looks like Barry Manilow.”

Elwood looks at Barry, pushes his sunglasses down and looks over the top of them, and says, “Now that you mention it . . .”

Barry points his finger at Elwood and says, “Not another word from you.” Then he turns his finger toward me. “What kind of deal?”

I don’t know if what I’m about to propose will make a difference, if it will help to fix anything, but at this point, unless I decide to poach good luck from a ten-year-old kid with an attitude problem, I don’t really have any other options. Or at least if I do, I haven’t figured them out yet.

“I want you to leave my sister alone,” I say.

A few days ago, even a few hours ago, I would have asked for immunity. For a new identity. For a house on Martha’s Vineyard and season tickets at Fenway. Maybe even a lifetime membership to the Playboy Mansion. Actually, let’s put that one at the top of the list. But all I want now is to try to make things right before they get any more wrong.

“You’re not exactly in a position to name your price,” says Barry.

“Neither are you.”

I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s what comes out of my mouth. Another side effect of poaching top-grade soft is that it makes you say stupid things with complete confidence.

Like politicians. Or professional athletes accused of taking steroids.

We emerge from the Broadway Tunnel into Chinatown and come to a stop at Powell Street, which ascends toward Nob Hill on one side and drops down to Fisherman’s Wharf on the other. Barry sits across from me staring, waiting for me to blink first. But I’m not going to let him win this one. I can’t afford to.

“Your sister is my leverage,” says Barry.

“Does that mean she’s the fulcrum?” I ask. “Or is she the lever and I’m the fulcrum? Or is one of us the mechanical force? And does that make you the load?”

I never was good at physics.

“I was thinking more along the lines of business operations,” says Barry.

“I don’t know about that. But I’m still thinking you’re the load. A really big load.”

Next to me, Elwood smirks.

“Think of yourself as the equity and your sister as the debt that has to be paid off to supplement my investment in you,” says Barry, ignoring my comment. “She’s what I’m using to maximize my gain.”

“Well, the way I see it, without my help, you’re going
to have a hard time building any equity. So if you keep leaning on your debt, you’re not likely to get a return on your investment. Which means eventually you’ll end up bankrupt.” I don’t know if that’s right, but it sounds good to me. “Or another way to look at it is that my sister isn’t any good to you as bargaining power if dangling her safety over me just pisses me off.”

Next to me, Elwood fights to suppress a smile.

“You’re pushing your luck,” says Barry.

“I’ve been pushing luck most of my life. Why stop now?”

The sedan crosses Columbus and pulls over in front of the Garden of Eden strip club, across from the Hungry I Club, the Roaring 20’s, and Big Al’s Adult Super Store. If this is where they’re kicking me out, it’s a big improvement over Grace Cathedral. Not exactly the Playboy Mansion, but I’ll take it.

“Let’s say I agree,” says Barry. “What are you going to do for me?”

Somewhere in the back of my head, my father is telling me I don’t have the balls to behave like a real man. To accept my responsibilities. To suck it up and take what’s coming to me.

“I’ll agree to do whatever you want.” I never was good at negotiations. “You want me to poach for the CIA or the FBI or whoever the hell you are? I’ll do it. You want to use me as a scapegoat for whatever you have on Tommy Wong? Go ahead. You want me to tell you about the
secrets of the poaching trade? I’m your man. Just back off my sister.”

Nothing like agreeing to give up everything in order to try to win back your self-respect.

Barry stares at me across his pore-gasping, Transamerica Pyramid of a nose, his eyes blinking once, then twice, so slow it’s like his eyelids are low on batteries.

“We’re going to give this one more try,” he says, pulling out a pen and a white business card and writing something down on the back of it. “You think you can follow directions this time?”

“I don’t know. You think you can learn how to say
please
and
thank you
?”

Elwood coughs once into his fist in a valiant effort to cover up a brief explosion of laughter.

“Go to this address,” says Barry, handing me the card and giving Elwood a glance of disapproval. “Show this card and try not to say anything stupid.”

That’s like asking a fish to try not to swim.

On one side of the business card is a handwritten address for 636 O’Farrell, and under that is what looks like someone’s license plate: 2OZ LGH.

Two ounces low-grade hard.

While your run-of-the-mill bad luck can be offset with a healthy dose of top-grade soft, only an infusion of Pure can remedy the effects of low-grade hard. So despite the rush of the top-grade soft from Donna Baker flowing
through my system right now, this doesn’t exactly sound like my idea of a fun time.

“Just make sure you don’t lose that,” says Barry, pointing to the card.

I flip the card over. On the other side are just three black letters, raised and embossed on the white background:
BGS
.

I don’t know if they’re the initials for Barry’s real name or if they’re an abbreviation for whatever government agency he works for or if they stand for Bozo Goon Squad, but he still hasn’t given me an answer.

“What about my sister?”

“I’m not in a position to make any deals. But just deliver the bad luck to Tommy Wong and you won’t have any problems.”

“You didn’t say
please
.”

“Pretty please. With sugar on top. Whipped cream and a fucking cherry, too. Now get out.”

Then Elwood is opening the door and getting out of the sedan.

I step out onto Broadway, the sound of traffic and tourists and the smell of exhaust and sweat assaulting my heightened senses. I put on my sunglasses to block out the brightness of the colors and try to breathe through my mouth as Elwood slides back into the sedan. Before he can close the door, I lean over and look past him into the backseat at Barry.

“Hey, how’s this for an analogy? Asking me why I’m poaching luck is like asking a federal agent who looks like Barry Manilow why he’s such a complete dickhead.”

Elwood smirks, then regains his impassive expression and closes the door. The sedan drives off, turns right on Kearny, and disappears around the corner, leaving me standing on the sidewalk in front of the Garden of Eden.

Some Italian huckster with slicked-back hair and a cheesy mustache is trying to talk me into coming inside to check out the merchandise. I have to admit, getting a lap dance while high on top-grade soft is tempting. You haven’t experienced physical pleasure until you’ve indulged in carnal delights while riding the Softland Express. Yet another reason why so many poachers end up addicted to their product. It’s like discovering the joys of first class and realizing you can never go back to coach.

So here I am, being tempted by the fruits of the human flesh in front of a strip club named after the paradise that man was allegedly thrown out of for eating the apple from the tree of knowledge, and I can’t help thinking about the symbolism of my getting dropped off here.

As far as I’m concerned, Christian mythology is just that. Myths. Stories. Fables. Parables and metaphors designed to teach lessons about what it means to be human. And the lesson of the original sin is the curse of knowledge.

When that first apple was eaten, we absorbed its nutrients and it became a part of us. All of that knowledge of
what we were capable of. The good and the evil. Once we’ve eaten from it, we can’t uneat it. We have to live with the consequences of what we’ve done. There’s no turning back.

Sounds familiar.

Personally, I’ve never subscribed to any kind of religion because, well, when you have the ability to manipulate luck and influence the lives of every person you touch, you tend to develop a belief in yourself as some kind of superior being. It just goes with the job description. You can’t do what I do and think of yourself as normal. I exist in a different universe. The rules don’t apply to me.

You can see why it’s easy for me to get into trouble.

No one wants to confront his own shortcomings. Least of all me. I hate taking responsibility for my own actions. It’s so much easier to pretend that the things I do have no consequences or ramifications.

Which is how I got into this mess in the first place.

With the late afternoon slipping into early evening, I don’t have time to get a lap dance or stand here philosophizing about the moral implications of my lifestyle choices. I need to catch a cab to the Tenderloin and pick up some bad luck so I can prevent my sister from becoming collateral damage for my own hubris and desire.

I have a busy schedule.

I flag down a cab heading toward the Embarcadero and climb in the back.

“Where to?” says the driver.

I pull out the card Barry Manilow gave me, but before I tell the driver to take me to the address on O’Farrell I need to find out if the woman I thought I saw a few minutes ago was Scooter Girl, and if it was, I’ve got a few questions I want to have answered first.

“Shanghai Kelly’s on Broadway and Polk,” I say. “And if you flip a bitch and make that green light, there’s a hundred in it for you.”

The driver pulls away from the curb and makes a quick U-turn that gets us through the light before it turns red. I pull a hundred from my wallet and drop it on the front seat.

“Thanks,” I say. “By the way, you’re not vegan, are you?”

A
nother thing about high-quality good luck is that it helps you to make green lights all the way to your destination, so you get to Shanghai Kelly’s just in time to see who you thought was Scooter Girl, and who turns out to be Scooter Girl, get on her scooter and drive off in the direction from which you just came.

“Follow that scooter,” I say to the cabdriver.

“We’re not really supposed to do that.”

I throw another hundred on the front seat next to him. “How about now?”

After scooping up the cash, the cabdriver flips an illegal U-turn on a yellow light and heads back toward Chinatown. As we’re driving down Broadway again toward the tunnel after Scooter Girl, my phone rings.

“Nick Monday,” I say.

“What the fuck happened to you?” says Tommy.

“You’ll have to be a little more specific there, Tommy. It’s been one of those days.”

“I got a call from your driver. He told me some men grabbed you in Pacific Heights.”

“The driver’s vegan. And he’s a douche bag. Don’t believe a thing he says.”

“I believe who I want to believe,” says Tommy. “Where’s the product?”

“It’s in a safe place,” I lie. Other than Donna Baker, I didn’t poach from any of the marks on the list.

“Have you deposited it at the bank?”

“It’s on my list of Things to Do.”

“Why haven’t you made a deposit?”

What, where, why? It’s always questions with these Mafia kingpins. And it’s never anything like
How are you?
or
What’s up with the ladies?
or
Did you enjoy the fruit basket?

A little appreciation goes a long way.

“I wanted to complete the list first,” I say.

“You haven’t completed the list?”

“Still working on it,” I say as the cab enters the Broadway Tunnel. “By the way, can you e-mail a copy of the list to me?”

“A copy? Why do you need a copy?”

“Just as a backup.”

In the brief moment of silence on the other end, Tommy is probably realizing that I don’t have the list. Either that or I lost reception.

“You lost the list?”