Lucky Bastard (7 page)

We stand there, me half leaving and her half coming, the two of us half blocking the entrance to Starbucks, half staring at each other, neither of us saying anything.

I never was good with awkward moments.

I watch her face, waiting for her to say something, to give me a cue to play off of. But she just looks at me with
that expression of disapproval, as if I’m perpetually disappointing her.

“How are the girls?” I finally ask.

“They have names, you know.”

“Right.” I never was good with names. “So how are they?”

“Fine. You missed their birthdays again.”

I never was good with birthdays, either. Or anniversaries. Or holidays. I even forgot it was Christmas one year.

We stand and stare some more without making eye contact. It’s not easy to do, but we’ve had lots of time to practice.

“And your husband,” I say. “What’s his name?”

“Ted. His name is Ted. And he’s fine. We’re all fine.”

I just nod, trying to ignore the rising color in Mandy’s cheeks, wondering if she’s going to ask how I’m doing. If I’m still poaching. Though it’s more likely she’d rather not know.

“You still up to your old tricks?” she asks.

“A little here and there.”

Mandy nods, her lips pursed. I can tell by her expression that she wants to ask me if I’m ever going to grow up, but she won’t. Not here. Not in public.

Mandy never did like to make a scene.

Several customers come and go, squeezing past us as we continue to half block the entrance.

“I should be going,” she says.

“Sure. It was good to see you.”

She doesn’t reciprocate and we don’t hug. Instead, I just step to the side and let her walk past me into Starbucks. Unlike the barista, she doesn’t look back as the door closes shut behind her.

W
ith a container of medium-grade good luck and ten thousand dollars in my backpack, I figure it’s a good idea for me to leave the money someplace safe before I head back downtown to my office. While my apartment isn’t necessarily the safest place, considering I live across from a motel for ex-cons and drug addicts, it’s closer than my office and more practical than the bank.

Before heading straight to my place, I walk up Laguna to the Green Street Market to pick up a roll of Mentos. There are other markets and corner stores that I could hit up on my way home, but I’ve been going to the Green Street Market ever since I happened upon it more than two years ago. And like my Lucky Charms and my Starbucks cappuccinos, I’m a creature of habit.

When I walk into the store, an older guy in a suit is down at the end of the counter, talking on his cell phone. Sam, the proprietor, is standing behind the counter wearing a black, short-sleeve silk shirt and an unfamiliar expression.
His smile seems strained, his eyes unnaturally fixed on me, like he’s trying not to look anywhere else. Even though the weather is typical San Francisco summer foggy, Sam’s suntanned chrome dome is shiny with perspiration.

“’Morning, Sam,” I say.

At first Sam doesn’t say anything. Just keeps staring at me with that odd expression, like he knows me but he’s pretending not to. Then he says, with too much formality, “Good morning.”

Behind me, the same attractive Asian woman in a red coat from Starbucks steps through the front door, talking on her cell, saying that she just walked into the store.

I’m the first to admit I’m not much of a detective. It’s more of a day job than a calling. But I don’t have to channel my inner Columbo to know that something’s up.

I glance around, thinking maybe I walked into the middle of a robbery, but other than the guy in the suit, who walks past me and out the door past the Asian woman, who is now picking out a jar of Kalamata olives, no one else is in the store. I don’t know what’s up and part of me doesn’t want to know. I’m beginning to think I made a mistake coming in here, but I’m out of Mentos.

As I throw a couple of rolls on the counter and pull a five spot from my wallet, a black sedan with tinted windows pulls up in front of the store. Before I can get my change, the Asian woman walks up and puts a gun in my ribs.

“Hello, Mr. Monday,” she purrs in my ear like a promise. “Care to go for a ride?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really,” she says, nudging me toward the door. “After you.”

I’m guessing this is the setup that I thought didn’t happen. Silly me.

“Sorry, Nick,” says Sam.

“No worries,” I say as I’m escorted out the door and into the sedan. It’s the luxurious type, with the two back bench seats facing each other. I’m facing backward, sitting next to the Asian woman. I’m expecting Tommy Wong but instead, sitting across from me with a laptop next to him is a white man in a Brooks Brothers suit with swooping light-brown hair and a nose the size of the Transamerica Pyramid.

“This is nice,” I say, as the sedan pulls away from the curb. “Are we going to prom? Or is this a bachelorette party?”

“Nick Monday?” says the suit, looking up from the laptop. “Is that your real name?”

“Who wants to know?” I ask.

“Does it matter?”

“Does it matter that you’re a dead ringer for Barry Manilow?”

He laughs. It’s not a friendly laugh. More condescending, with a hint of malice. I never really liked Barry Manilow.

I glance over at the Asian woman, who gives me a professional
smile, no teeth, and I wonder if she had a collagen injection or if her lips are natural.

We’re two blocks away when I realize I left my Mentos sitting on the counter.

“What’s in the bag?” Barry asks, indicating my leather backpack.

“Schoolbooks,” I say. “I’m going to night school.”

Barry glances at his watch. “At half past ten in the morning?”

“I like to make sure I get a seat in the front row.”

“Open the bag.”

He knows what’s in it. And I know he knows. So I open up my backpack and remove the bottle of Odwalla Super Protein, which the Asian woman takes from me and hands to Barry.

“What’s the grade?” asks Barry, holding up the bottle.

“Medium,” I say.

Even without the tinted windows and the black sedan, I figure the two of them work for the government. Considering the sedan is nicer than my apartment, I’m wondering if I should look into getting a job in the public sector.

“So what do you want?” I ask.

Barry looks at me with half-lidded eyes. I almost expect him to break into the opening lines of “Weekend in New England.”

“We could have you arrested,” he says.

I don’t know which branch of the government they work for: the IRS, seeking its cut of unreported income; the FBI, attempting to regulate luck poachers; or the FTC, looking to make luck a tradable commodity. Just because the government denies any knowledge of luck poachers doesn’t mean they aren’t aware of our existence. Whoever they are, I’m guessing they didn’t go through all of this trouble to audit my taxes.

“What. Do. You. Want?” I repeat.

He smiles. “Your assistance.”

“What kind of assistance?”

“Are you familiar with a man by the name of Tommy Wong?”

“I’ve heard of him,” I say, playing nonchalant. “Old Chinese guy. Well connected. Some kind of Lord of Chinatown.”

“That’s one way to put it,” says Barry.

“According to our sources,” says the Asian woman, “Tommy’s been buying up as much good luck as he can and using it for himself, which has made it virtually impossible for us to catch him doing anything illegal or come up with any evidence to convict him of racketeering or extortion.”

“Or murder,” says Barry. “And since we can’t seem to manipulate any of Tommy’s employees, we decided our best chance to get to him was to find a luck poacher. So we got ourselves a luck junkie and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

“My ten o’clock Starbucks appointment.”

“Bingo,” says Barry. “Though we’ve been looking for you for the past couple of months, ever since Gordon Knight’s fortunes took a dive.”

I don’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction, though I’m suddenly wondering if Tuesday Knight knows more about the circumstances of her father’s luck poaching than she’s letting on.

“We figured there was a good chance of finding a poacher in San Francisco when the mayor’s popularity plummeted,” says Barry, who spreads his arms out like a game show host. “And now, here you are.”

“Lucky me.”

“That depends,” says Barry.

“On what?”

“The way we figure it,” he says, “the only way to catch Tommy is to counteract the good luck he’s accumulated. And the only way to do that is to give him a healthy dose of bad luck.”

When it comes to bad luck, everything that can go wrong, will—sickness, bankruptcy, divorce, hair loss, impotency, sterility, car accidents, shark attacks, canceled flights, termites, flood damage, herpes.

And that’s just your garden-variety bad luck. When it comes to low-grade hard, imagine the worst thing that can happen to you short of death, then dip it in oil and set it on fire. Just a trace amount of the stuff can stick around like a bad infection—making you sick for two months,
sending your business into the tank, and elevating Lucky Charms to a gourmet breakfast.

“So why do you need me?”

“To deliver the bad luck to Tommy Wong,” says Barry.

I shake my head. “I won’t poach bad luck. That’s not my game.”

“The game has changed, Mr. Monday. You’re playing by our rules now.”

“Maybe so. But there’s nothing you can do to me that would convince me to poach bad luck.”

“No,” says Barry, turning the laptop screen toward me so I can see it. “But we can do something to
her
.”

On the laptop screen is a photo of a woman walking out of the Starbucks on Union, the only other person living in San Francisco who can poach luck.

Amanda Hennings. Mandy. My sister.

Fuck.

“Fortunately for you,” says Barry, “the dirty work has already been done.”

Next to me, the Asian woman produces a metal case the size of a mass-market paperback. Something by Elmore Leonard or Sue Grafton rather than James Michener. She opens it to display a stainless steel vial encased in foam.

“Two ounces of low-grade hard,” she says, then closes the case and hands it to me.

I take it and hold it out in front of me like a used diaper filled to capacity. “What am I supposed to do? Just walk up to him and say, ‘Happy birthday’?”

“Tommy’s recently started contracting luck poachers from out of state to expand his search for good luck,” says Barry. “Paying top dollar for luck poached and delivered to him. We figure it’s only a matter of time before he contacts you.”

Barry needs to learn how to tell time better.

“When he does,” says Barry, “that’s when you deliver the package.”

“Deliver how?” I say, as the Asian woman pulls out her phone. “You can’t disguise bad luck as good luck. It’s not possible.”

Good luck, no matter the grade, comes in varying degrees of white. The highest grade is the color of alabaster, while the lowest grade looks like diluted lemonade. Bad luck, conversely, is as black as the shadows in the barrel of a gun. Low-grade hard absorbs light like a black hole.

The sedan comes to a stop in front of Grace Cathedral.

“How you deliver it is your problem,” says Barry. “My problem is Tommy Wong. If you don’t take care of my problem, then
you
become my problem. Do we have an understanding?”

I look at the Asian woman, who is either texting or playing Angry Birds, I can’t tell. All I know is that it’s bad form to use your cell phone when you’re in the company of others. Some people have no manners.

“Can I have my luck back?” I ask.

Barry picks up the Odwalla bottle. “I think I’ll hold on to this for good luck.”

“You’re a funny guy.” I get out of the sedan and thank Barry and his partner for the lovely time. “We should get together for lunch. I know this really great Thai restaurant.”

Barry gives me a condescending smile and says, “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Monday.”

Then the door closes and I watch as the sedan turns right and vanishes around the corner.

T
he first thought that comes into my head is that it’s definitely time for me to cut and run. Grab a cab back to my apartment, pack up what I need, gather up the cash and fake IDs I have stashed away in my apartment and in my office, and head north to Canada or south to Mexico. I hear Vancouver’s nice, but I don’t really care for the snow. And now that I think about it, I hate Mexican food.