Tumblin' Dice (10 page)

He was snoring again already.

• • •

Oscar Stinson pulled into the Huron Woods parking lot and saw the casino security car's headlights aimed at the open trunk of a Lexus sedan, saw Burroughs already there and out of his
SUV
talking to the young security guard, and he knew he was right calling the
OPP
before he even left the station.

Getting out of his car, Oscar could see the dead guy on the ground and Burroughs turning towards him, starting in right away with “Ambulance is on the way,” and Oscar said, why? “You think they can revive him?”

Burroughs said he was just following procedure, but Oscar knew what he was doing was trying to get the body out of the parking lot as fast as he could so it wouldn't be a distraction for the gamblers, take them away from the slots for five minutes.

Oscar said, “Sandra's on her way, too,” just to see the look on Burroughs' face, and it was worth it, the asshole scowling for a second and then trying to look like he didn't care, saying, “Maybe she won't catch the call,” and Oscar said, “I didn't call dispatch; I called her.”

“Well, so what? This is nothing — couple of guys got into a fight and one of them got shot.”

“Sure,” Oscar said, “happens every day.”

Burroughs said the guy was probably from Toronto, “Probably both of them,” and Oscar, taking a closer look at the dead guy, said, “Isn't that Dale Smith, runs the shylock business here?” and Burroughs said, “I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.”

Oscar smiled to himself and then saw the unmarked Ontario Provincial Police car pulling into the lot, driving right up to where they were standing, and Sandra Bolduc getting out.

She said, “Hey, Oscar,” and then looked at Burroughs and said, “You didn't touch anything, did you?” and Oscar could see Burroughs wanted to tell her to fuck off, but even more he wanted this to just go away. He wanted
her
to just go away.

Since they'd opened the casino and Burroughs had come up from Toronto, running away from that drug scandal as fast as he could, he'd been trying to bribe the local cops — Oscar, the Huron Woods Reserve Police's only constable, and his boss, Chief Grayson — but they never took the bait and the
OPP
transferred anyone who looked like they might a thousand miles north.

Now Detective Inspector Sandra Bolduc was in charge: it was her crime scene and the techs would be here soon and it would be run properly, taking as long as it needed to and getting into the casino as far as she wanted it to go, and Burroughs couldn't do a thing about it. Oscar was thinking, good, but he was also thinking there was probably a lot more going on here, a lot connected to this and it could be bad for everyone.

Then Oscar saw a skinny guy with long hair standing between a couple cars, and he stepped over to him, motioning him further off and saying, “Did you see anything?”

The guy said, no, just the end, “Guy shot him once while he was standing and then a couple more times when he went down.”

“Did you see what he looked like?”

The guy said no, said he was standing way over by the trees, by the path down to the lake, and Oscar said, “What were you doing over there?” and the guy said, “Just taking a walk.”

Oscar got the feeling there was something else going on the guy didn't want to talk about, but he didn't press it — he could come back to that later. He said, “You didn't notice anything about the shooter?” and the guy said, in the dark? “I couldn't tell if he was black or white,” and Oscar said, he could have been an Indian, and the guy said, yeah could've been, “Around here he could've been Chinese.”

“What about his hair, did you see that?”

The guy thought about it and said no. He looked around and said maybe he was wearing a hat, “A toque, maybe, a black one. Little knit cap, you know, like the Edge wears sometimes.”

Oscar said, the guitar player in U2?, and the guy said, yeah, “Has to put up with Bono,” and Oscar smiled and said, well, that's something, anyway. Then he said, “What kind of car did he get into?” and the guy shrugged and said, “Civic, Corolla, Impala — I don't know.”

“Was he driving?”

The guy said, no, “He got into the passenger side. Now that you mention it, the car might've driven up as he was shooting the guy.”

Oscar said, “You look familiar,” and the guy said, “This is my first time here. I'm in the band,” and Oscar said, “The High?”

The guy said, yeah, “I'm Ritchie Stone,” and Oscar said, “The High, ‘Red Light Street,' yeah. I got some cousins have a band. You ever see that show
Rez Tunez
?”

“Yeah, I've seen it —
TV
show with the Native acts.”

“Yeah, Gitchigoomee. Those're my cousins.”

“Shit, I was with Dutch Mason for a while — we played some gigs with those guys, couple of blues festivals, couple times at the Mariposa.”

“Oh yeah, Dutch, the Prime Minister of the Blues.”

The guy, Ritchie, said, yeah, “That's him.”

Oscar said, okay, thanks, and then, “Can I get some contact info on you for follow-up?” and Ritchie said, “I didn't really see anything,” and Oscar said, “You never know what might be important later.”

The guy said, okay, yeah, “I can see that. Well, I'll be here at the hotel for a couple more days. We play here Friday, then I'll be back home for a couple of weeks,” and Oscar said, where's home? The guy looked around, glancing back at the hotel, and said, “Toronto,” and Oscar got the feeling something was going on here, too. He took down the guy's phone number and email and address and thanked him again, and the guy said, yeah sure, and walked back to the hotel.

The tech guys still weren't there, probably coming in from Orillia or Barrie, could take another half hour, and Oscar saw Burroughs and the security guard who worked for him not talking to Sandra as she leaned against her car talking on her phone.

Oscar walked over, away from Burroughs and the security guard, and when Sandra finished her call she stepped up and said, “Witness?”

“Guy in the band. Was over there, saw the shooting but he was too far away.”

“Way over there by himself?”

“What he said.”

“You believe him?”

“I believe he was way over there and didn't get a good look at the shooter, doesn't know if he was black or white or Asian, couldn't tell what kind of car he got into, didn't see the driver at all, but I'd like to know why he just happened to be way over there when it went down.”

Sandra said, “And why he stuck around to tell us he didn't see anything,” and Oscar said, “You think he's giving us misinformation?”

“I don't know.” Then she said, “Is he in Cheap Trick?” and Oscar said, no, “The High,” and Sandra said, “Oh yeah, ‘Red Light Street.' Okay, well, we'll get back to him.”

The tech van drove into the parking lot and Sandra said, “Here we go,” and Oscar liked the way she always said “we,” as if it didn't matter he was the only constable on the reserve police and she was a detective on the provincial force.

And he liked the way it pissed off Burroughs.

Gayle walked from her condo building the two blocks to Holt Renfrew on Bloor and looked around by herself for a few minutes, not surprised no one offered her any help even though she knew they were staring at her. Jeans, t-shirt, Jays cap — she could be a movie star in town: she could be Sandra Bullock or Renée Zellweger or Angelina Jolie.

But she didn't have an entourage, she didn't phone ahead, she just walked into the store and started looking around. After a few minutes she found some jeans she liked, but of course every pair on the rack was too small, so she had to find a clerk.

A pinch-faced girl asked if she could help, and Gayle said, “Have you got these in my size?”

“I don't think so.”

“Why don't you find out.”

Gayle watched the pinch-faced girl pinch it up even more and say she'd ask her manager, walking across the store like she was getting away from a bad smell. Gayle actually liked it, liked watching Pinchface when the manager said something to her and her eyes bugged out and she knew she'd have to come back and start sucking up. Still wasn't getting old.

Pinchface came back and said, “We would be happy to order them for you and deliver them when they arrive?”

Gayle knew from now on everything Pinchface said would be a question, hoping Gayle would like it, whatever it was. It was like
Pretty Woman
, when they found out Richard Gere was footing the bill, except it was even better for Gayle, it was her own money. Seven hundred bucks for a pair of jeans and she wouldn't even notice it.

She said, “I don't think so. What about these boots?”

Pinchface said, “Of course,” trying to smile now and rushing off.

Yeah, Gayle liked it.

She finished up at Holt Renfrew, ordered the boots, of course they didn't have her size, walked back to her condo, got the Audi
Q
7 from the parking garage and drove through downtown.

The radio was playing Lionel Ritchie, “Dancing on the Ceiling,” and Gayle started to change the station but stopped. She'd found this one out of Hamilton, calling itself “Vinyl 95” and claiming to play the “Greatest Hits of the '70s, '80s, and '90s,” which pushed them one decade past the classic rock station that still played a lot of stuff from the '60s, but even they were sneaking in a little Pearl Jam and Nirvana. But these Vinyl guys, they were playing top forty and it was taking Gayle back.

She stopped and went down University Avenue in her eighty-thousand-dollar car, all the bells and whistles, radio playing Cyndi Lauper and Gayle thinking about dancing at that club out by the airport, way back when it was a sleazy dive, bringing in the French chicks from Quebec, those girls dancing to Céline Dion and Gino Vannelli.

Gayle thinking that was a million years ago — her big dreams were a week on a beach in Venezuela and a bag of weed.

Now the radio was playing Duran Duran as she drove up the ramp onto the Gardiner Expressway, and Gayle was thinking, what are my big dreams now? She had no idea.

Not riding off into the sunset on the back of Danny's bike just as they were becoming the really big players, that was for damn sure.

She got off the Gardiner at Islington and pulled into West End Exotics, the car rental place she owned, and when she parked behind the building she was thinking how she really did own it now.

They'd started putting the legit businesses in her name the last time Danny went down, seven years ago now, did his year and a half in the Maplehurst Correctional up in Milton, the Milton Hilton, and they lost everything they had to Proceeds of Crime. Since then they'd been a lot more careful with the money, and Gayle got more involved in the businesses and the money laundering so now she really was running things.

And things were going well.

She went in the back through the garage and Tony waved her over saying, “The Spyder's back — you want to take it out?” pointing at the Ferrari 355, the roof still down, and Gayle said no.

“Guys only rent that one to get road head — I'm not sitting in those seats, I don't care how much you scrub them,” and Tony said, “I'm not touching them now,” and Gayle laughed, walking into the office.

Two FedEx envelopes were already there.

They hadn't been shipped; they'd been dropped off.

She opened them and took out the money — twenty-five grand in each — and put it all in her big shoulder bag. She was still surprised how little room fifty grand took up. Mostly twenties, fifty in a bundle, fifty bundles, wasn't much more than couple pairs of shoes.

Wasn't all that much coke, either, a kilo each to a couple of their best wholesalers, but it was good to see payments on time.

Gayle threw her bag over her shoulder and went out through the garage, Tony telling her the seats were fine.

She said, oh yeah, “Try putting one of these cars under a black light,” and he said, “You're gross.”

She waved without looking back, got in the Q7 and drove further west into Mississauga to Stancie's condo across the highway from the big mall, Square One.

Stancie buzzed her in and Gayle took the elevator to the twenty-eighth floor. When she got off Stancie was leaning against the door frame, waiting.

Gayle said hey, and Stancie said, come on in, and held the door. The envelope, this one just plain manila, was on a table under a mirror in the front hall, and Gayle picked it up and put it in her shoulder bag.

Stancie said, “You want a coffee?” and Gayle said sure and went into the living room while Stancie went into the kitchen.

The living room had a pretty good view of all twelve lanes of the 401, steady traffic in every direction even in the middle of the day. Gayle sat on the white couch and watched Stancie making the coffee across the counter in the kitchen. Gayle was thinking it was a nice enough condo, a little small but served the purpose. They owned three in the building: Stancie ran the escort agency from this one and used the other two for in-calls.

Stancie came out of the kitchen carrying a couple cups of coffee and handed one to Gayle, saying, “It's all there, but it's tough.”

Gayle said, yeah? Stancie sat down across from her and said, yeah, “We had to lower the price again.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Not lower, really, but we've had to give hour-longs for the price of halfs. The girls are complaining.”

Gayle drank some coffee and said, “I'm sure they are, but it's a recession, what're you gonna do?”

Stancie said, I know, I know, “And they're doing anal for the same price and duos for three hundred bucks instead of five.”

“That's the thing about this business,” Gayle said, “it's flexible. There aren't any hard costs — it's not like the cost of materials is going up. So they have to do a few more hours — they're making their numbers, they should be happy.”

Stancie said, yeah, of course, no one's complaining, and Gayle said, “Good,” but she said it hard to end the conversation because it sure sounded to her like somebody was complaining and Stancie said, “No, of course, I just wanted you to know what's going on.” And Gayle said, “I know what's going on.”

Then she thought maybe she was too hard because Stancie looked worried, and Gayle figured she'd have to throw her a bone and said, “Look, we're going to start moving some girls up to the Huron Woods Casino. Is that something that might interest you, get out of the city for a while?”

Stancie said, yeah, “That might be fun,” and Gayle said, okay, I'll let you know when that happens, and she stood up and said she had to go.

Driving back across town Gayle cranked the radio, Springsteen's “Born in the USA,” and was thinking how things never change. Back before the bubble burst Stancie and the girls were complaining about how everybody was making so much money the clients weren't classy enough and wanted all kinds of weird shit, Daphne actually saying she thought she'd be going out to dinner with businessmen. Shit, where do these chicks come from?

A couple more stops at a couple more condos to pick up more cash, and then Gayle drove across the top of Toronto on the 401 and down into town on the Don Valley Parkway, feeling good. She took the Lake Shore exit and drove up to Eastern Avenue, past the new condo building where the old clubhouse used to be, thinking that was as clear a sign of them moving up as anything could be. They'd made that deal with the cops they owned to raid the clubhouse, make a big deal on
TV
about how they were cleaning up the neighbourhood, then they bought it back at the Proceeds of Crime auction, added it to the other properties they owned on the street, and put up the condo building. Gayle had thought about keeping a condo there, but the neighbourhood wasn't that nice yet.

She pulled into the car audio place, one of the legit businesses that wasn't doing that well, and went inside.

One of the installers was sitting on the edge of the receptionist's desk and they both looked up like they'd been caught when Gayle came in.

Gayle said, “No work,” and the installer said he was waiting for a guy bringing in a truck, going to install surround sound and a flat screen in the sleeper, and Gayle said, “
G
3 so he can get porn 24/7,” and the installer said, “You know it.”

In the back Danny was working on his motorcycle, and Gayle said, “What the fuck?”

Danny said, yeah, “Look at this baby, haven't had her out in so long, and then it was just for that run through Quebec,” and Gayle dropped her shoulder bag on the workbench and said, “Yeah, I remember.”

Danny looked like he was just remembering then, and Gayle watched him put it together, remembering that she didn't go on the run with him, first one she'd missed and probably the last one they'd ever have.

At least she'd figured it was the last one since they'd moved so far into the big time and left all that biker bullshit behind.

Danny just shrugged it off and went back to work. He had pieces of the bike all over the floor of the garage. Gayle hadn't seen oil on his hands like this in years, since way back when they started getting hangarounds to keep up the bikes and pretty much stopped riding them.

Then Danny said, “You remember that first time we went to Sturgis?” and Gayle was thinking, oh shit no, not fucking nostalgia, and didn't say anything.

Danny said, “We went up around Superior, remember? Big as a fucking ocean, what a view, the mountains, you hugging me around the waist, started stroking me.”

“We don't have time to ride down memory lane, Danny.”

“Shit, there we were on the T Can, you had your hand in my jeans — seventy-five-mile-an-hour handjob.”

“We were kids, come on.”

“Like it was yesterday.”

Gayle said, yeah, well, “Maybe you get your head into today.”

There were two more bags on the workbench, gym bags from some more dealers, and Gayle opened them up and put all the money into a single hockey bag. Half a million.

Then she said, “I'm going to meet with Frank,” and Danny didn't even look up from his bike, so she said, “I'm going to send one of Stancie's girls up with him, the Portuguese one, I think.” Still nothing from Danny. Shit.

She knew he missed the old days, but this was getting crazy. She watched him put pieces of the bike together, and she was thinking he didn't even care about what they had going on, all the money coming in, the deals they were working. Shit, look at him covered in grease playing with his bike, looking like he'd give it all up for a blowjob on the lookout in Banff.

Then she said, “And I'm going to lunch with the Mafia wives,” and Danny smiled and shook his head a little but didn't look up from the bike, so Gayle said, “Nugs set it up with one of the guys, thinks it's a good idea,” and Danny said, “You're lucky he isn't trying to marry you off to some eighty-year-old Godfather.”

Gayle watched him for a minute, not even sure he'd mind if she did leave him and marry someone else, and she was thinking, why am I doing all the fucking work?

Then she said, “Okay, I'm going now,” and Danny said, yeah, okay, still not looking up.

She carried the hockey bag back out through the office thinking, fuck it. She was going to make this work, she'd take the next step, do whatever she had to even if it meant doing it on her own. If Danny didn't give a shit, Nugs would help.

In the office she said to the installer, “Why don't you sweep up the place while you're waiting,” and the guy looked shocked, but didn't say anything, and Gayle thought, yeah, okay, if you have to, be the fucking boss.

Outside she threw the hockey bag in the back of her Q7, got in, and started up and lit a cigarette before pulling out. She took a deep drag and thought, okay, I can do this, I can run things.

Shit, she could never actually have a title, these old fucking men would never put up with that. She'd have to do it from behind like she was pretty much doing now with Danny, and if he didn't want to do that, fuck it, there was always Nugs.

He loved being president; he'd do whatever it takes.

She pulled out of the parking lot and felt better.

So some things did change. Some things could be changed.

• • •

Ritchie said there was already one high school in town, Brockville Collegiate Institute, been there a hundred years, “So when they built the new one, just in time for me to start going there in '72, they were going to call it Thousand Islands Technical School till somebody realized what the initials would spell out on the back of a jacket,” and he waited till Angie got it and then said, “So they called it Thousand Islands Secondary School,” and she said, “
TISS
.”

When they'd sat down for lunch Ritchie could tell right away she didn't want to talk about anything from last night. Not the guy shot in the parking lot, not how it happened two minutes after she'd driven away, or how people were already acting like it never happened, and she really didn't want to talk about the new kind of connection Ritchie was pretty sure they were making.